


Echo Chamber

by orphan_account



Series: Spirals and Eyes [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Michael Shenanigans, Canon-Typical Violence, Human/Monster Romance, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Slow Burn, Vaguely Opposed Enemies to Lovers, its real rarepair hours in this house, technically canon compliant if you use your imagination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 14:03:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20967764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Look, if you’re another, uh, avatar of a horrible eldritch demon god come to assassinate me in a spooky manner, could you get it over with quickly? I haven’t eaten all morning and I’m starving.”The thing that calls itself Michael stares.“And this sandwich cost most of my weekly salary,” Gerry adds after a belated moment.





	Echo Chamber

` [CLICK] `

` Log recorded, uh, what day is it. Tuesday the second? Yeah, Tuesday. `

` Back here again. I always forget how damn expensive everything is, ’s annoying. At least this time I found a relatively cheap place to stay, and it’s next to a bar, which is a nice bonus. God knows I need the booze nowadays. `

` I’m planning on checking into the Institute, seeing if they’ve recovered any more Leitners recently. Best case scenario I can sneak in, do a burn-and-run, and leave before they catch wind of me. Worst case, I have a repeat of last year and get landed in a ditch five miles south of civilization. I’m pretty sure they think I’m dead, which is handy, so if I can help it I’m not gonna let them see my face. `

` That’s about it. I’ll update you later. If you don’t find one... assume I’m dead, I guess. Gerry out. `

` [CLICK] `

* * *

The café a few blocks down is Gerry’s favorite place to go when he’s snooping around the Institute. It’s cheap, the booths have tall walls, and the coffee isn’t completely rancid. That’s all Gerry needs these days to call a place home.

As soon as he enters he makes a beeline for the table farthest away from all the patrons, trying not to look too much like a suspicious young punk looking to shoplift chips from the snack bar. He sits there fidgeting with a napkin until a waitress comes over. He orders the exact same thing every time he stops by -- tomato, lettuce, turkey on rye with mustard.

The waitress - Clara, says her name tag - must have memorized it by now with how many times he’s given it, but Gerry can’t find it in himself to feel embarrassed. If she’s annoyed she doesn’t give any indication; only a soft smile, a head tilt, and a friendly “be right back with your drink, sweetie” before bustling back behind the counter and disappearing through the kitchen door.

He almost doesn’t notice the person sitting across from him. Almost, but as the figure examines the menu and hums a soft, plodding tune in a monotone voice, he realizes he doesn’t remember them ever having sat down to begin with.

“Fine day today, isn’t it?” the voice behind the menu hums. It’s lilting, friendly, and utterly inhuman.

“It’s hot as hell,” Gerry answers flatly. “Jacket keeps sticking to my damn skin.”

It laughs. “Nice-looking weather is deceptive in that way.”

Gerry sees a mop of curly blond hair, a round, handsome face that by all means should look unthreatening, but marred by a smile several teeth too wide to look normal. Its eyes are right across from him, and blatantly staring. But as he tries to focus on them it’s like looking through an unfocused camera lens; any detail he tries to glean is unclear and blurry.

The waitress comes back, award-winning smile on her face and notepad in hand. “Can I get you anything else…”

She trails off as her gaze shifts to the figure, hands folded politely and smiling pleasantly. At first she just looks confused, dropping into a stutter, scripted pleasantries entirely forgotten.

“Good morning,” it says sweetly.

“You weren’t… um…” she shakes her head as if trying to snap out of a trance. “I’m sorry. I don’t - I don’t remember you coming in.”

“Oh, I was already here.” The notion makes Gerry’s stomach roil unpleasantly. “I believe you haven’t taken my order, though!”

“Righ... right. What would you…” She stutters over the line a few times, before a complete non-sequitur falls out instead. “What did you do to the kitchen door?”

It doesn’t reply, but its smile grows wider, and that makes the waitress step back. Her eyes bulge as they dart from its face to its hands, and her face solidifies into a look of abject terror.

“I’ll take another black coffee.” Its eyes - where its eyes should be - glint with a cold, bright hunger. The waitress nods once dazedly before stumbling quickly to the employees-only bathroom. Gerry can hear loud retching before the door swings shut behind her violently.

The seated figure turns back to Gerry, with a wide grin like it expects him to be impressed.

Gerry frowns. “That was uncalled for.”

“I take my fun whenever I can get it,” it replies, smugness dripping from its voice like oil. It laughs at the face Gerry makes in response. “She’ll be _fine_. People see things all the time, you know. When they don’t have answers for it, perhaps they obsess over it for a day or so. Then they move on. The average person has too many responsibilities to get caught up on a few extra eyes.”

Gerry glowers, but he does concede that the thing probably could easily have killed that waitress -- and him, likely -- without too much trouble, yet it doesn’t seem interested. “Didn’t catch your name,” he says, trying to keep his voice casual as patrons pass around them.

It leans toward him on one hand, a wry smile dancing on its lips. “Call me Michael.”

“You don’t look like a Michael,” Gerry blurts.

“Oh?” For some reason, that elicits a pleased hum. “Good to meet you, Gerard.”

Gerry’s nose wrinkles. “Okay, you can drop the human act. If I’d told you my name before, I definitely wouldn’t have given you _that_ one.”

Michael smiles coyly, stirring a packet of sweetener into its (still untouched) coffee. “You don’t look surprised.”

“Yeah, uh, I’m used to it.” Gerry sighs, rubbing his eyes with one hand. God, he’s tired. “Look, if you’re another, uh, avatar of a horrible eldritch demon god come to assassinate me in a spooky manner, could you get it over with quickly? I haven’t eaten all morning and I’m starving.”

The thing that calls itself Michael stares.

“And this sandwich cost most of my weekly salary,” Gerry adds after a belated moment.

It blinks. Then it laughs. It’s a horrible, discordant sound, like a church bell being struck by a metal pipe. “I should have known! Those tattoos are hardly subtle.”

Gerry glances down at the sharpie eyes he doodled on his wrist in lieu of an actual tattoo artist and makes a begrudging grunt of concession.

“It’s funny,” muses Michael. “Usually the Beholding-marked are rather obvious to me. Are you one of the Archives’ assistants?” Its lip curls. “One of Gertrude’s, perhaps?”

“_No_,” Gerry quickly bites out. Not Gertrude Robinson, never Robinson, he’s heard enough about her and the things she _does _to assistants to know when to stay far, far away.

“Ah.” Michael’s voice becomes taut with emotion, but it’s impossible to read what emotion it could be. It leafs through another page of the menu. “Wise choice.”

Gerry senses it’s unwise to pry into the history there. Instead, he says, “I’m not a servant of the Eye. Or any of them, actually.” He takes a sip of now-lukewarm tea. “Call me an unaffiliate.”

Michael’s eyebrows rise. “Odd for someone so familiar with us. Usually they’re touched by at least _one_.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not the first monster I’ve ever talked to. Or will talk to,” Gerry huffs. He thinks briefly about his mother, and the monsters _she’d _summoned. Then he crumples the thought up like a piece of paper and casts it back into his subconscious, spitefully. “You aren’t trying to kill me yet, though, which is a nice surprise, so…” He shifts in his seat, scratching his head. “Thanks. I guess.”

Michael lets out a soft, pulsating chuckle. “I’m not known for those. Likewise, not many people are so willing to make conversation with me. Really, I should be thanking you.” It extends a hand.

Gerry looks at the outstretched hand, then back to Michael. He silently raises an eyebrow.

“A nice surprise,” Michael promises.

Hesitantly, Gerry shakes. The hand is cold, and heavy. It sinks into Gerry’s palm like a stone is being pressed down into it, the skin rough and coarse like sand. Its long, slender fingers wrap around Gerry’s wrist in a manner that can only be described as... disconcerting. After a long moment, Michael withdraws its hand, looking pleased.

Gerry discreetly scrubs his palm down a clean spot on his jeans, trying not to grimace. He kind of wants to ask, _so, was that secretly a binding ritual or something? Am I one of your freaky servants now_? But that might be taken as an insult, and _something _about the situation tells him it would be an uproariously bad idea to get on Michael’s bad side. So he keeps his trap shut.

A silence stretches between them. Michael is looking at him expectantly, but Gerry’d be damned if he had an inkling to what it wanted.

“So,” he says awkwardly. Facing eldritch abominations or no, Gerry couldn’t hold a conversation if his life depended on it. “Definitely not the Eye, right?”

“The Spiral,” Michael says, proudly.

_That explains a lot_, Gerry thinks, maybe a little rudely. “And why exactly is the avatar of the Spiral sitting around in a dingy café?”

“I can have hobbies, can’t I?” Michael responds in a somewhat affronted tone. “It’s a lovely place. And such a nice view.” It gestures at the nearby window. Gerry looks. It’s the usual scene of the city, but the passing cars and civilians seem to warp slightly at the corners. A limb or two bends briefly at impossible, painful angles. The sunlight spilling in seems harsher, stabbing pinprick daggers into Gerry’s eyes.

Gerry sucks in a sharp breath. Michael makes a clicking sound of amusement.

“Why are you here?” Gerry tries again. He hears the amused sound again. He’s starting to get the feeling that Michael is toying with him now, like a cat playing with a mouse before devouring it. A cold wave of unease washes through him (as well as a burning, resentful annoyance at the fact that apparently _everyone’s_ got to be goddamn cryptic all the time).

“You really want to know?” A trick question, but Gerry nods anyway.

Michael beams. “Then I can’t tell you.”

Gerry extends a middle finger. Michael howls with laughter and the sound echoes in Gerry’s ears.

“I’m not scared of you,” Gerry says. It’s at least half true. He’s not particularly surprised, or horrified, by the thing called Michael. He probably can’t be at this point, after all the Leitners he’s hunted down and the long trail of bodies left in their wake. Still his heart hammers in his throat and a visceral, itching sensation burrows into his skin, the primal urge to _run_ that he can’t push down no matter how many monsters he faces.

“Liar,” Michael responds, “but I appreciate your attempts to spare my feelings. You’re more pleasant company than Jude anyway.” It stands. Its cup of coffee is still full to the brim.

Gerry forces his fists to clench, then unclench. “Are you going to kill me after this?”

“Of course not.” Michael brushes off its jacket. Its eyes are so blue, Gerry realizes. They look almost white, like marble. Thinking about what they look like in detail sends a brief stab of pain through Gerry’s skull. “You’re good company. That said, I _will _need you to avoid taking the tube tonight, I have business there. Understood?”

Gerry, swallowing around a mouth full of cotton, nods.

Michael reaches for the handle of a yellow door that Gerry’s sure wasn’t there before, then pauses. It looks back at him with a smile.

“Be seeing you,” it says simply, and as soon as Gerry blinks Michael and the door are both gone.

He sits there for ten more minutes before deciding to walk the six blocks back to his hotel room instead of taking the train. It takes him longer than usual; every few feet he finds himself making gradual left turns without realizing, until at once he’s circled back to where he started.

That night, he doesn’t sleep.

* * *

“You’re back!” Michael chirps, closing its newspaper as Gerry approaches. The day is still beautiful, but less obscenely muggy, so they’re at one of the outdoor tables. Michael sits cross-legged, leaning casually back in its seat with an air of grace. It looks almost human, from a distance. It very nearly resembles an unremarkable businessman in the midst of a middle-age crisis on vacation, but Gerry can see from behind the dark, obnoxious sunglasses that the eyes are still wrong.

Gerry ignores the greeting. He strides over and places the missing persons report flat on the table. Michael looks at it with a vague expression of recognition. “You took someone last night.”

“Several someones, actually!” Michael doesn’t even try to deny it. Some part of Gerry’s mind, begrudgingly, appreciates that.

He takes a deep breath. “Did you kill them?”

“I don’t like to kill. It would have been easy, though…” Michael sighs. “No, they’re still running around in my tunnels somewhere. I can feel their _scrabbling _against the walls, it’s rather annoying.”

Gerry glares, knuckles flat on the tabletop.

“Oh, please don’t fret.” Michael’s voice takes on a placating tone. “They weren’t anyone you’d want to see free. Besides, they were queued for a _far _worse death before I stepped in -- have you ever been buried alive, by any chance? _Nasty_ way to die, when you still need to breathe. Did them a favor, honestly--”

“I’ll kill you,” Gerry grits out, “If you take another innocent person. I’ll find out a way and I’ll kill you.”

Michael blinks and gives a quizzical, puppyish head tilt. “And _what _makes you think they were innocent?”

_Every person that gets put in missing persons reports because of things like _you_ is innocent_, Gerry’s subconscious screams. He says nothing.

Michael rolls his eyes. “Please. The Flame’s little cultists always do more harm than good when they’re running about. They were going after you, you know.”

A record scratch plays in Gerry’s head. “Huh?”

“They’re _quite _annoyed at you for taking that book of theirs. Honestly I thought they’d at least appreciate that you burned it instead of putting the thing through a shredder, like I would have. I mean, the whole burning, that’s their modus operandi, isn’t it? Lightless Flame’s whims are so petty like that. Fortunately that makes them quite unsubtle.”

Gerry’s brow furrows. “How do you know about the--”

Michael gives him a sharp look. Literally. Gerry feels a sudden, invisible pressure on his chest jab at him disapprovingly, though Michael doesn’t visibly move an inch. “I would be a _pitiful _excuse of an Avatar if I didn’t know what a Leitner was, wouldn’t I?”

It takes a couple seconds to remember how to breathe. Gerry wheezes. “Right on then.”

“And now that’s all over and done with, I’m having a coffee,” Michael continues breezily as if nothing happened. Demonstratively, it clinks the rim of the (still-full) coffee mug with a spoon. As the adrenaline subsides, Gerry can’t help but ask a question that’s been nagging at him since their first meeting.

“Do you ever actually _drink_ those?” He points at the coffee cup.

Michael gives him a quizzical glance. “And why would I do that?”

Gerry’s mouth flaps open and shut as he scrounges for an answer, but he comes up short.

“You know,” Michael muses, “I don’t believe you told me why _you’re_ here, the first time we met.”

Gerry scoffs, “What, you can’t just - know it?”

“I’m no Beholder.” The word is icy on its tongue. “Everything I know I get comes from listening, not watching.” It beams. “Besides, I’d love to hear more from you! You’ve scarce said a word to me that isn’t probing about my existence. Or a threat.”

Damn, it might be right about that. Gerry actually - _actually_ \- starts to feel kind of guilty. “Um… right. I’m here for… I guess you could call it work.”

“For who?”

“Self-employed.”

Michael chortles, “How upstanding.”

Gerry manages a wry smile. “I find Leitners. Track them down, buy them from people. Then I burn them.”

“Well, congratulations on surviving so long. Most people in your place, they’d be gone within the week.”

“I have a lot of experience with them.” _Mary. Mom. Bind them. _“Don’t like looking back on it.”

“You do know it’s a fruitless endeavor, right?” Somehow, Michael’s voice doesn’t come off as unkind. It’s soft, like a parent breaking the news gently about a pet’s death. “The more you destroy, the more you’ll find cropping up. And no matter how many you hunt down, something else - something like me - will end the world anyway.”

“I don’t care.” It’s surprisingly easy to say. “I want to see them burn.”

Michael hums. “That’s selfish.”

“I know.”

Michael looks at him. It’s a soft, all-encompassing look.

“What a human thing to say,” it says.

* * *

Little signs of Michael’s presence begin to make themselves known in Gerry’s life.

He starts finding silverware tucked into the corners of drawers, prongs bent neatly and meticulously into perfect spirals. Typed letters begin printing with curved, odd bends, even after thorough checks of the computer and the printer itself. One time, he walks from his rented bed to the hotel bathroom and it takes him fifteen minutes to find his way back. The hallway just keeps curving back around, and the doorway doesn’t get closer no matter how much he walks, until all of a sudden he’s just back at the edge of his mattress.

It doesn’t feel particularly threatening. In fact, Gerry muses as he uncovers yet another bent fork from the now-gaping maw of his silverware drawer, he’s starting to think it might be a display of affection.

One day, he comes back to his hotel room to find a yellow door in the center of one of the walls. It’s closed.

Gerry blinks. He looks around, making sure it’s not just an elaborate and very specific hallucination. He snaps a picture of it with his phone. It shows up just fine. (Albeit rather boringly. It’s a door.)

“Okay,” he says loudly to the air. There’s no reason to expect a response, but he still feels miffed when he doesn’t get one.

_What game are you playing at, Fuckhands McMike?_

He examines it thoroughly. Squints up against the grain of the wood to check for weird patterns (none), measures the doorframe to check if it breaks Euclidean geometry (doesn’t). It’s a mustard yellow color. Bronze doorknob. The most Gerry can say about it is that it looks, functionally, just like how you’d expect a door would look.

“Okay,” he says again, and chucks a nearby household object at the door. It hits with a solid thud and slides to the floor.

It infuriates him. Michael is leaving all these little breadcrumb trails of himself, culminating up to whatever _this _is supposed to be, and Gerry is stupidly picking up every piece, in search of answers that are always five steps out of his reach. He’s going in circles and he knows it, and he can’t fathom what it’s even for. He doesn’t even know why he’s _mad _and that just burns through another few inches of his temper.

Gerry knocks his forehead against the grain. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this.”

Predictably, there’s no response.

* * *

As he’s being lifted roughly by the throat, steel-gripped fingers squeezing to crush his windpipe, somehow the thought that placidly crosses his mind is _shit, I never did get that door open._

“Any last words?” Jude Perry snarls, dangling him over the rooftop terrace.

“Hrkkghhh,” roughly translates to what comes out of Gerry’s mouth.

Perry’s left hand warps with flame, her face splitting into a wide, grotesque grin as she brings it closer to his. Gerry gags from the suffocating heat radiating off of it and the growing smell of burning hair, he can’t help but squeeze his eyes shut as he braces himself for impact.

_Maybe it’ll be quick,_ he thinks, but a wiser part of his brain knows it’ll hurt more than anything he’s ever experienced in his life, and she’ll draw every drop of suffering out of him until he dies.

Then the floor beneath Jude Perry almost casually swings open, creaking like a trapdoor, and suddenly she’s standing over a perfectly rectangular hole where a few seconds ago there’d been only smooth concrete. Deliriously, Gerry’s mind draws a connection to Loony Toons.

Jude’s eyes widen, and for a split second she’s completely forgotten about burning Gerry’s face off. The blank look of confusion gives way to sheer panic as she abruptly drops like a stone, screaming as she topples into the depths and disappears. Gerry lands on hard concrete with a winded _oof_, the air knocked out his lungs, and gasps raggedly for oxygen.

When he finally stops seeing double, the hole is once again nothing more than smooth concrete.

What the fuck.

A hand brushes his hair, and Michael’s voice rings lilting and amused in his ear. “Your hair is singed.”

When Gerry turns around, there’s no one there but whistling wind. Dazed, he stumbles back down to his hotel room, collapses on his bed with his head still spinning, and ends up sleeping for fourteen hours straight.

“Why did you save me?” he rasps a week later. The marks on his throat, five neatly-outlined finger marks, are mottled purple and unfading.

Michael ponders for a moment.

“Breach of territory,” it decides. That’s the closest thing to an answer Gerry will get out of it for the rest of the visit; they sit there in silence, drinking tea and listening to cars go by.

“Thank you,” says Gerry finally. The smile that splits open Michael’s face is blinding.

* * *

` [CLICK] `

` It saved me. I don’t… I don’t know what to make of this. `

` The first time we talked, I think it was trying to threaten me. Making a big show of messing up some poor waitress. But then it goes and pulls… this stunt? He… it… It doesn’t seem to want me dead, but then why -- aren’t I interfering with whatever its plot is by burning the Leitners? Maybe it’s because I messed up the Flame’s plans? God, it just.. _swallowed_ Perry whole. I know she tried to kill me and all, but… eurgh. Disturbing. `

` What’s ’breach of territory’ supposed to mean anyway? Like… it wants to kill me and doesn’t want the other Entities stealing its _clout_? It’s been leaving all my fucking cutlery in spirals and making me walk five times farther than I should be going whenever I walk to the bar, so it could _clearly _exert its power over me, easily, if it tried. `

` So why am I not dead yet? `

` I’ve stopped recording these in my hotel room. I’m pretty sure it can hear me from there. `

` [CLICK] `

* * *

It is amusing for Michael to think of a world where Michael doesn’t know everything about Gerard Keay.

That makes it sound like _such _a stalker! But really, voyeurism is a mere side effect of Michael’s general existence; Michael can help it as much as a fly can help the things it overhears while perched on a wall. Where there are doorways, there is Michael, and where Michael is, Michael can listen, and by now it knows the sounds of Gerard Keay’s morning rituals like the back of its hand.

Every day at exactly four in the morning Gerard Keay sits up in bed in a cold sweat, swearing like a sailor. He tries to go back to sleep for two hours, tossing and turning until around six AM, which is when he throws his hands up and finally resigns himself to being awake. He spends an hour applying heavy eyeliner, doesn’t brush his teeth and opts instead to gargle Listerine for five minutes. Michael finds this intriguing and disgusting. Gerry spends an intermediate amount of minutes deciding whether or not to make himself breakfast or go out for food, and always chooses the latter.

The rest of the day is variable. Gerard is only as matched in his dedication to hunting down every Leitner he can find as he is in profound laziness, so he spends the whole day on-and-off feverishly doing research or putting off further researching. Occasionally he will stumble to the nearby bar and drink himself into unconsciousness. Of all the options this is, personally, Michael’s least favorite, so it loops Gerry’s path until he gets frustrated and heads back home.

Gerry doesn’t come over to the café every day, but when he does, Michael finds itself filled with buzzing anticipation. Michael sits for hours in one place, holding ice-cold cups of tea, once it catches wind Gerry might come by today. It’s a long time to wait, but Michael is very patient. Their talks are all about nothing, and every conversation Michael has with him is the most thrilling part of the day.

Hey -- sitting in one place for like two years being unfathomable is only entertaining in theory. Michael, for all the things it has forgotten about being human, finds that it can still get bored.

Usually it takes out this boredom on people like Clara Barnsworth, the cute, freckle-faced waitress from the dingy café. But now there’s a person to fixate on, and boy, is Michael _fixating_ \- it’s just so fascinating watching someone so stubbornly devoted to doing one thing, and nothing else. Gerard Keay has a self-preservation instinct, but just barely. As wary as he is of Michael’s antics, it’s not like he ever stops coming over to that cheapo café and letting Michael derail an hour of his time with conversations about nonsense.

Michael has been so _bored_. Everything has been so _boring_ until Gerry rolled around, and now tormenting Gerard Keay in concerning but harmless ways is, somehow, the most exciting thing on Michael’s to-do list.

However, time marches on, and things start to shift. All the little things Michael does to make his presence known are starting to get positive affirmation rather than confused, angry reactions. Once or twice it’s caught Gerry smiling as he turns over a pen in his hands, the end bent into a twisted spiral shape. One night Gerry even greets the door as he comes back, a tired greeting of “hey, Michael“ before collapsing onto his mattress. (Michael had let out a pleased thrum and shifted the corridor half an inch closer to the hotel bed. Gerry has yet to notice.)

It has been so very long since anyone has been so comfortable in Michael’s presence. Actually, it’s very possible no one has _ever _been comfortable in Michael’s presence; certainly Michael can’t remember the last time it happened with a living, non-Spiral creature. Yet when Gerard Keay discreetly tucks another spiral-warped instrument into his pocket that Michael knows he’ll later add to a growing collection, it fills Michael with a strange, warm feeling. Michael _hungers_ for it. And so, Michael will keep listening and Michael will keep making spirals.

...Michael is aware this doesn’t really help the stalker angle, but can a fly’s nature be helped?

* * *

“Is that actually your real name?” Gerry says to Michael out of the blue one day, emptying a canister of cheap beer. “Michael.”

Michael pauses. “It’s what I’m called.” It’s not what Michael would _like _to call itself, but it’s the closest thing that can describe what Michael _is _in one word.

Gerry’s dark eyes narrow, scanning Michael’s face. So typical of him, Michael thinks, searching for answers even in the face of something that rejects answers by definition.

“You don’t look like a Michael is all,” he says finally, voice carefully neutral - perhaps to avoid a perceived offense. Michael hears the frustration underneath it and grins.

“You don’t insult me with these questions, Gerard. I simply don’t know why you go into it expecting solid answers from me. Am I not a creature of _Es Mentiras_?”

“You’re a creature of _annoying_,” Gerry grouses without real venom. When Michael laughs, the corners of his lips twitch up into a grin, which he attempts to hide with a nonchalant swipe of his hand across his mouth. Michael is absolutely _not_ endeared by this motion. “Didn’t I tell you not to call me that, also?”

Michael trills, “Now, there’s something I’ve never understood. You humans and your nicknames. A name is a label, same as any other. What is, functionally, the difference between ’Gerard’ and ’Gerry’?”

“_Gerard_,” Gerry says, stretching out the “a” into a long caterwaul of a phenome, “makes me sound like a forty-five year old white business major with a beaming trophy wife, with whom I conceived four children suspiciously close to Super Bowl season.” He takes another swig as he waits for Michael to stop howling. “I hate the sound of it. Gerry’s not much better but it’s not the name my bitch of a mother gave me.”

“And how is that bitch of a mother doing?”

“Dead as a doorknob,” Gerry says. His face is ruddy and alcohol-flushed. “Thank Christ.”

That makes Michael go silent. Michael has no memory of having a mother - there are flashes of an older woman with the same blonde curls, phone calls at inopportune times preceding anxiety-laden conversations. But they are foreign. Still, Michael is pretty sure you’re not supposed to talk about one’s mother with the quiet, fiery _hatred _that Gerry does.

“You’re glad she’s dead?”

“Well duh. If she were alive she’d _hate_ me doing this.” Gerry looks at his eye-studded hand with a glassy, dull stare of resentment. “She’s the one who got me started on this whole business. Leitners. Except she wanted to use them, because she was a fucking arrogant _idiot_.” He laughs, hysterically, without humor. “I’m pretty sure she killed my dad? And if she hadn’t kicked the bucket when she did, I’m sure I would have gone next. I was too unruly to be her little heir. I bet she’s still watching me though.”

“Why do you…” Michael asks one more question, to scratch the burning itch. “Why are you telling _me_ this?” Michael, the door. Michael, one who eats knowledge, twisting it until it is unrecognizable. Michael, who knows how to kill and dismember a human body in ten minutes flat.

Gerry makes a noise. It’s almost a laugh, but it dies halfway out of his throat. “Who else do I have?” Beer can empty, he crushes it and tosses it to a nearby bin. “You’re not getting anything useful by me telling you about my mommy issues. Unless that was the key to your stupid ritual after all.

“I have no one left. Did you know I’m turning thirty soon? Three entire decades alive. And I’ve built up absolutely _nothing_ worth celebrating. No kids. No family. Not even a fucking _pet_. I’m not stupid enough to forget you’re a dangerous spiral alien thingy, and you could easily just - just reach over and kill me--” He laughs wryly. “-- I just don’t see any great loss in the world, there.”

Michael’s lips purse involuntary. “You’re drunk.”

“It’s my natural state of being, baby,” slurs Gerry, head drifting down to rest heavily on a folded arm.

Michael sits there in silence for a long while.

* * *

It waits until three days have passed, long after the conversation has been forgotten. Then it corners Gerry, inexplicably, as he’s walking back up to the hotel.

“If you can’t pull yourself together enough to stop drinking yourself to death,” Michael whispers into his ear, “I will personally pull you apart limb to limb. I won’t have someone whose soul shines so bright succumb to a death as mundane as _alcohol poisoning_.”

It leaves Gerry shaking, unharmed but stinging with pain that could have been. Michael saunters back down the hall casually, whistling a monotone tune.

There are no more visits to the bar after that. Michael is coldly pleased.

* * *

` [CLICK] `

` I’m gonna drop the pretense that these recordings are for research. `

` Dad, these are for you. I know it’s stupid, doing something like this for someone who isn’t even alive to appreciate it, but it makes me feel better so fuck off, okay? I just… anyway. `

` I thought I got Michael’s deal, before he shoved his hand into my windpipe to give me a fucking... alcohol PSA. He didn’t even say anything about it the night I actually _was_ drinking. God, that was the night I talked about Mary, wasn’t it? If I were Michael I’d attack me for that too, actually. `

` Maybe this is his way of driving me slowly goddamn insane. Being one person to me one day and switching once I think I’ve got a handle on him. `

` The - the stupid thing is, I don’t even - I’m not even angry at him for it? He didn’t actually hurt me. I swear to God, I checked in the mirror and everything, my body’s just - _fine_. He said something about tearing me from limb to limb or something, but considering he’s left me alone this long without putting a finger on me, I’m pretty sure that’s a bluff to make me stop drinking. It might be, in a weird, fucking recursive way, his way of telling me he _cares_ about me. `

` ... `

` ... `

` (It’s kind of flattering. In a fucked up way. He said something about my soul shining?) `

` ... `

` ... `

` Oh yeah, I forgot to mention he’s not human either, Dad. So don’t, like, freak out. Morality scales and all, they’re probably out of whack when you’re an entity made of raw fear juice. Michael’s nicer than most of ’em. He tries. `

` ... `

` I wish I was actually talking to someone right now, instead of this useless hunk of plastic. It’d probably help the nightmares. `

` I keep dreaming about mom. She hasn’t _appeared_ to me in a while, but I feel like.. I feel like I’m on the verge of seeing her again. It’s like that feeling of bile you get in the back of your throat before you vomit. She hates me doing this… fraternizing with the enemy, as she’d say. Keep waking up feeling like her hands are on my throat. I’m trying not to dwell, but I really don’t know how much more I can take. `

` I wish… `

` … `

` [CLICK] `

* * *

The door is still there when he gets back to the hotel room.

Hesitantly, Gerry tries the lock. It’s firmly shut.

“Come on, Michael,” he whispers against the grain of the door. There’s silence.

* * *

The next few weeks are some of the slowest and most agonizing of Gerry’s life.

It’s only after Michael disappears completely from his life that Gerry realizes how interwoven their routines had become. The scattered Spiral paraphernalia vanishes. The café spot that’s always occupied them sits empty, no coffee cups in sight. It’s even stupider in hindsight for Gerry to have not realized how - how close they’d gotten, considering how little people Gerry _has _to begin with, shouldn’t it have been so obvious?

But no. Somehow, the thing calling itself Michael had wormed its way into his life so slowly and organically he hadn’t noticed, and now the gap left by Michael’s absence yawns like a deep abyss.

He’s restless. He needs to occupy himself, but every time he thinks about alcohol his stomach does a dizzying twist. So Gerry researches endlessly, edging closer and closer to the Institute, trying to find the way in. (Not that it would be _physically_ hard with the, what, three whole security guards they keep on campus? Getting in there unnoticed by the Eye is different story.)

Bizarrely, he finds he keeps putting that off too. Every time he comes close to a lead he shuts the notebook he’s been scribbling in and just - leaves. For a long while he doesn’t know why, but then he notices the anxiety that roils that through him every time he thinks about stepping into those dark, godless corridors and not coming back out.

It’s been so long since Gerry felt afraid of being dead, the feeling is completely foreign. He’s got no idea what to do about it, and Michael is still ignoring (?) him, so Gerry just… wanders until he finds things to do. He walks around until the sky is ink black, the stars only a few cold specks of light.

This time it’s the Lonely that tries to do him in. It’s kind of expected, honestly, and Gerry admits, pretty on-brand considering the whole situation. He only notices it when the temperature dips sharply from the muggy heat of a summer afternoon to being cold as ice, and looks down to find the tips of his boots being swallowed up by tendrils of fog.

He runs. Periodically traffic lights pass him overhead, and they all glow an eerie red. The dark, but more than that, the emptiness is _suffocating_ \-- the sheer nothingness pushes into his throat in place of oxygen, constricting around his lungs until he gags. He scrapes his knees on asphalt as he falls, clutching at his throat as hot tears of pain streak down his face.

Gerard Keay is going to die, just in time for the primal, blinding fear of death to have resurfaced in his psyche after years of dormancy. He thinks to himself, childishly, as the fog slowly squeezes the last of the air out of his lungs, _it really isn’t fair._

Then a hand is on his shoulder, and before Gerry can look up, the fog is expelled out of him with a loud retch. Michael doesn’t grimace as Gerry is sick on his shoes, lying there and choking for breath next to his feet for several minutes before he’s able to get to his feet. Somewhere in the back of Gerry’s mind, he is absolutely mortified that Michael can see him like this, so wretchedly vulnerable.

“How many times must I save you before you learn how to stay out of trouble?” Michael’s voice is soft and scolding, rubbing circles into Gerry’s back. The hand is heavy and deformed.

“Have you _met _me?” Gerry manages to bite out before almost gagging again. _Lonely does not fuck around, _he makes a mental note to himself. _Lonely cuts straight past the foreplay to the gruesome ritual murder, apparently._

Michael lifts him. It is a profoundly easy motion, even though Gerry’s not much shorter and has to weigh a shitton with how heavily he’s leaning on Michael right now, but Michael’s frame is unmoving and sturdy. They’re in front of the café, Gerry finally realizes.

“Where did you go?” Gerry asks. He doesn’t care if he doesn’t get a straight answer. If he doesn’t ask, he’s going to implode.

“Nowhere.” Michael’s tone suggests this is not a metaphor. “I was listening, but… I didn’t want to see you.”

“Why.”

“I was under the impression the feeling was mutual.”

“Dude, you’re the only person I talk to on a semi regular basis. Of course I wanted to fucking see you.”

Michael laughs. “Not a person,” it softly reminds Gerry.

_Bullshit,_ Gerry wants to say, but bites his tongue.

“I’ll be honest, our conversation that night…” Michael’s brow furrows. “I think it upset me. Strange feeling, that. Not used to it. I don’t like the idea of you being killed.”

“Pschh. That’s nothing to get your feathers ruffled about. You really think that I’d…” He feels Michael’s gaze shift from his ripped, bloodied jeans, the vomit on his shoes, the reddened, tear-wet corners of his eyes. Gerry shuts his mouth. “Right.”

“I thought I’d give you my thoughts on how you might spend less time at the bar.”

“And by that, you mean looping your fingers through my vocal cords.”

“The threat was empty. You know that.” Michael looks at him, tiredly. Gerry can’t remember ever seeing that look on its face. _Exhaustion. _“Do you really think I could do anything to hurt you, Gerry?”

Gerry swallows.

“I know you lie a lot.”

Michael seems to consider this. “That’s fair.”

They stand there in silence for what feels like hours. The moon is stark and bleaches a thick white crescent into the night’s tapestry.

“I think…” Michael wets its lips. The motion looks diseased and unsettling, but unlike most times Michael does something upsetting, there’s no grin on its face. Its expression is solemn, and contemptibly humanlike. “I think you should join the Spiral, Gerry.”

Gerry is quiet.

“I know how it sounds… walking from the maw of one beast into the jaws of another, doesn’t it?” it continues. “But think about it objectively, please. I promise you, it wouldn’t be bad. You wouldn’t even have to give up your body. You’re so strong already, and cunning, but unguarded, how long can you last? I’d... I would protect you. You would be _safe_ with us, Gerry.”

Somewhere far away from them, a bird is singing. The moon shines down on them, a cold white eye.

“Is _that_ what this all has been?” Gerry’s voice is tinny and wry. “An extended advertisement for your fucking cult? You’ll have to try harder than that, you unknowable asshole.”

Michael _flinches._ Gerry turns on his heel, telling himself it’s because he’s storming away and not so that he doesn’t have to look at Michael anymore.

“Wait,” says Michael.

Gerry grits his teeth. Against all odds, he waits.

“You have every right not to trust me, Gerry, I won’t pretend that’s not the case. And I won’t force you to do the ritual, or anything you don’t want to do. But you must understand, I’m being - I’m being _transparent_ with you.” Michael looks like he’s in pain, saying that. Gerry honestly believes it.

“I had you in the corner of my vision once you entered this city. You were always an interesting potential candidate for the Spiral. But after a few conversations with you it became clear that no matter how good you might’ve been for the position, trying to convince you would be a hopeless endeavor. You are so headstrong, and you can be very, very stupid about things that can kill you.” Gerry tries to fix him in a glare, but can’t quite muster the venom.

“Yet I didn’t stop talking to you. I wasn’t lying before when I said you were good company, and it seems I… _enjoy_ being around you.”

Michael looks more uncomfortable than Gerry’s ever seen him. It’s because he’s explaining himself, Gerry realizes. He’s letting himself be known. Is even this small bit of himself painful to relinquish? Michael waits for a response, and then continues.

“It’s been really very… very difficult in your absence, and if you don’t need to go, I’d… appreciate it if we could start meeting up again. It’s been hard without you. And terribly boring.”

Finally, Gerry scoffs. “That’s a lot of fancy words to say ’I miss you’.”

“Well, now you’re just seeing through me. I definitely need to take you out now,” Michael says flatly, a little hint of his usual smug air creeping back into his voice. He’s smiling again.

Gerry breaks into hysterical giggles. “Local man learns too much, found dead in a ditch wearing a clown costume, more at eleven.”

“I’d never put your corpse in a clown costume,” Michael says through chuckles. They laugh together in the dark. Something about it is too intimate, the softness of their voices. “I’d bury you in that sweater we saw. In the thrift shop window, a week ago.”

“The one with all the circles? Michael, you may as well have put me in the clown costume.”

At some point, they’d started moving, and without any memory of it, Gerry finds himself back in front of the hotel. His arm is looped in Michael’s. He wonders, from a distance, do they look like two regular humans, walking together?

“Next time when you’re upset at me, don’t go off and abandon me to be eaten by lonely monsters.” He tries to blunt the statement into a joke, but he’s not sure how well it works. “Just tell me I’ve fucked up next time, and we’ll be dandy.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Michael hums amusedly. “To be fair, being upset in the first place was pretty new territory.”

Gerry raises an eyebrow. “Upset? You get upset all the time.” _Every time Gertrude Robinson’s name is even _alluded_ to_.

“I meant upset at _you_.”

They look at each other. The entrance to the hotel looms before them. Gerry, for some reason, is hesitant to go.

“Are you going to…” he nods his head at the door. “Come in?”

A few expressions cross Michael’s face. Gerry can’t parse any of them, can only stare and wait as the uncomfortable seconds pass.

“Not now.” Michael’s hand, sharp and heavy, settles on his shoulder. “Not physically, as myself, but… you’ll find my door there.”

Gerry tries to give him a smile. It might come off more as a wince, he doesn’t know. “Right.”

Michael starts heading off in the other direction, to some location Gerry can’t fathom. He burns a little with the question. Where are you going? But it’d be pointless to ask.

“Knock on my door if you need me,” Michael calls, as he grows smaller and smaller in Gerry’s vision. “I’ll be there before you know it.”

* * *

` [CLICK] `

` Dad, don’t freak out, but I think I’m on speaking terms with Michael again. `

` You know, for an eldritch fear entity, he has a really nice laugh? I mean, I think other people wouldn’t exactly classify it as nice. Maybe I’m just used to it. Dude laughs at every joke like he’s never heard it before. I don’t… I dunno, I’m happy. Should I be happy? Shit, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t stop smiling. `

` I have an ally now. A real ally. Never thought the Spiral was much one for those, but Michael finds new ways to surprise me every day. `

` Guess he really meant it, that time we met. `

` Update ya soon. `

` [CLICK] `

* * *

“You fell for _that_ creature? Ha!” A horrible scraping sound leaves Annabelle’s throat, and a twin chorus of hissing laughter rises from thousands of tiny mouths all around them. “A human, Michael. _Really_.”

“Be quiet.” Michael’s fists clench at his sides without permission. “He’s more than just... _’a human’_.”

“Oh?” Annabelle croons, circling him. “Then what is he? He assigns no allegiance to any Power. The only mark on the world he leaves is destroying those ghastly Leitners. Is he your little pawn? Plan on converting him, once you’re done toying with that fragile little body of his?”

To Michael’s horror, a roll of unease shudders through his body at the thought. “Shut. Up.”

She chuckles. “You forget your inhumanity, Michael. As close as you can imitate a human skin, you can’t change the stuff inside. The best you can do for him is pretend!”

“I changed nothing for him,” Michael retorts. It’s _not _desperation in his voice, he insists to himself. Annabelle’s eyes shine hungrily. “I’m not a wretched _human_, and I would never - never_ degrade_ myself so much as to pretend to be one.”

“That’s not what I see.” Michael feels a tug in his chest, and behind his eyelids, images begin to form. His hands, reaching for books off library shelves. Scribbling notes down feverishly on a sheet of yellow looseleaf. Placing a cup of tea on Gertrude’s desk, feeling a childish bubble of pride rise when she tells him, _thank you, Michael--_

Michael reaches out and sinks his fingers into Annabelle’s eye. They fix around a section of her skull and he rips it away with a nauseous _crunch_, leaving nothing but a gaping, bloodless hole half-covered in spiderweb. He drops it casually to the ground, where it lands heavily at Annabelle’s feet.

Annabelle barely flinches. “Interesting.”

“You’d do well enough not to bring that up again,” Michael replies cheerfully.

“Hmm. Two years ago, you’d have let that slide.” Annabelle bends down and calmly replaces the missing section of her face. Spiders immediately begin swarming around the ruined shell, weaving thick strings of cobweb to hold the break shut. “That boy is making you soft.”

“I beg to differ.” Michael glances pointedly at the crushed, dripping spot where her eye used to be.

“Physically, no. But your emotions get the better of you now, don’t they?”

“You _were_ being rather intrusive.”

“It is my nature,” she says simply, “And yours as well. Michael, illuminate me. Why now? Why this man, in particular, if you are not to use him as you have used countless others? What good is it for a sculptor to keep a tool he plans on never using?”

There’s a long pause.

“I’m happy with him,” he says softly, staring ahead. “Isn’t that enough? Must I have some other explanation rooted in conspiracies more ancient than myself? He is -- powerful, and he would make an even more powerful servant, but he wouldn’t let me control him if I tried.” He chuckles fondly despite himself and shakes his head. “My Gerry, he’s --” when had he started calling him that? It’s not his name, but the thought of the name _Gerard Keay _now is as repulsive to him as _Michael Shelley. _“-- headstrong in that way. I believe he has a… let’s call it a _vendetta _against joining powers like us.” He shakes his head. “I’ve tried convincing him. He won’t budge.”

“Human will is fickle,” Annabelle says, “and annoyingly hard to break. They’ll barrel headfirst into the foolhardiest of plots, not caring what they trample over in the process.”

“The Leitners are the extent to which he interferes. You don’t need to concern yourself about him.”

Annabelle scoffs. “Me? You’re the one he’s got ensnared more than anyone. He would make a lovely servant to the Web.” She sighs wistfully. “Alas.”

“What, do you think his intention is to destroy me?” It’s Michael’s turn to scoff. The idea of _anything_ destroying him at this point is farcical.

“No. I think his intention is to _know_ you.”

The idea sends a wave of disgust through him so strong it makes him want to vomit. He smiles instead, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “Good thing that can’t happen.”

“Uh huh.” Annabelle’s voice sounds anything but convinced.

“It’s impossible.” Michael lets out a harsh, strangled bark of laughter. “It is - it is quite literally_ antithetical _to my existence, Annabelle. I am knowledge’s shadow. Even if he wanted to--” and why would he? “-- he could never know me.”

The last of the spiders finish weaving their webs. Annabelle adjusts her hair, looking untouched from when she first began speaking, as if nothing untoward had ever happened. “Maybe not. But you’re as susceptible to change as any of the fears. I believe he is capable of changing you to be more human, and he will.” Her spiders gather in her arms. “The question is, how far will you let it go?”

Michael hisses, “It will _not _happen.”

She hums nonchalantly. “It already has. Tell me, when did you start thinking of yourself as a _him_?”

Michael bites back a curse. She gives him a wry smile. “I don’t do this to torture you, Michael. I’m no Montague. I’m just giving you a warning. You’re slipping, and if you’re not careful, you won’t know where you’ll land. And who will protect your precious human then?”

Her dry, desiccated hand pats his shoulder. “We should do this again sometime. Houseguests are hard to come by these days, and the tea you serve is lovely.”

* * *

Michael lies.

Michael lies about a great many deal of things. He’s lied about his own nature, lied to others about the state of the world and what things truly crawl behind the surface.

But most of all, Michael lies about himself. And probably the biggest lie Michael has ever told is that he doesn’t remember being human. No, he remembers being Gertrude Robinson’s assistant, pathetic, naive little _Michael Shelley_, and he hates it. He hates every minute of it with every fiber of his being. The thought of being like that again - scared, helpless, so _dependent_, makes thick bile crawl up his throat.

Yet, for Gerry, he would do it in a heartbeat, and that is the scariest thought Michael has had for a long, long time.

* * *

Days begin passing with painful ease. They chug along a placid, familiar daily routine; Gerry wakes up. Gerry walks four blocks down to the café. Gerry sees Michael. Michael sees Gerry.

Before he’d moved back into this city, Gerry had planned to stay here for a week at most. Now, it’s bordering on three months. Eventually he’d moved out of the hotel and into a similarly shoddy apartment, but Michael’s door remained.

The leaves on the trees are beginning to turn into russet shades of autumn, the whistling morning wind taking on a crisp, chill undertone. On good days, Gerry can breathe and see the air curl from his mouth like smoke - Christ it’s so much better than the muggy heat of summer. Even if it _is _his fault that he’s got nothing in his wardrobe other than leather.

He’s stopped researching. There are answers to be found, Leitners to be burned, but for the first time in soon-to-be three decades, Gerry finds that most of his time spent trying to do work just bleeds into talking with Michael, or when Michael’s away, thinking about talks with Michael. So, eventually he stops trying, and just… lives. He tries not to think too much about it.

Michael’s chipper as always. Apparently the autumn season is when he’s most active, as errant teenagers poking around in unknown, dangerous places begin running rampant this time of year. Gerry makes him swear not to do anything lethal, which Michael agrees to with staggering ease. (Less surprising when he clarifies it’s not like breaking a bone or two is _lethal_ with a twinkle in his eye.)

One day Gerry wakes up at eight in the morning. He blinks awake slowly from a dreamless fog, faint light spilling into his room from the window, and then remembers it’s his birthday.

He and Michael celebrate with a bottle of aged wine that Michael refuses to tell him the origin of. (When Gerry asks if it was stolen, Michael grins wider. Gerry has nothing but respect for that.) They fill two glasses from the back of Gerry’s relatively barren kitchen cabinet, and proceed to throw the tamest party Gerry has ever taken part of - all they end up doing is sprawling next to each other on Gerry’s beaten up tartan couch with the TV blaring faintly in the background, alternating between conversation and taking sips of wine.

It’s the first time Gerry’s touched alcohol since That Incident, and also the first time he’s done so without a violently ill feeling worming into his stomach, maybe because it’s a shared indulgence with someone rather than drinking himself into a wretched, pathetic mess. He leans back in his seat as he thinks on it, letting out an annoyed huff when his hair spills into his face.

“What is it?” Michael’s voice should be coming from his right because that’s where he’s sitting, but instead the sound just sort of floats in from all around him, as if Michael is speaking from directly inside his ears. Gerry hazily wonders when he got used to that sort of thing.

“Just thinking,” he replies, suppressing a hiccup. “Did you Palv- Pavlovian condition me into throwing up every time I thought about beer?”

“Er,” Michael says sheepishly. “It was an accident, I promise.”

“Your ’_accident’_ sent me on a three-month sobriety spell. So thanks, but also, fuck you.”

“You’re welcome,” Michael chuckles. “Three months. Has it really been so long?”

“I know, right? It feels like we’ve only been talking for…” Gerry shrugs. “Not that amount of time. And now we’re sitting on a couch, finishing off a bottle of wine that you probably stole.” He cracks an eye open to look at Michael, tilting his head. “Can you even get drunk?”

“I’ve no idea!” says Michael happily. “I’ve never tried before, in this body.” Michael used to be very adamant that he’d never had a body before this one, even after Gerry’d found out about the Ritual Incident (Gerry finds it in himself to begin truly hating Gertrude Robinson). Gerry wonders when so many things about Michael had changed, and why he’d never noticed. “There are so many common sense things I’ve never tried, even though I know how to do them. Like drinking coffee. Or driving!”

“Please don’t try driving.”

“I can be good at it if there aren’t any other cars,” Michael assures him with completely unjustified confidence.

“_Are_ you drunk yet?” Gerry looks to the bottle of wine, but it’s only half empty.

“I don’t know how I’d be able to tell,” Michael admits.

“I guess when you start passing out, or singing sea shanties.”

The show on TV isn’t anything Gerry recognizes from the scant few channels he’s got on cable. On screen, a woman decked out in a dress and haircut straight out the fifties scrubs dishes in her kitchen sink. A narrator’s voice is blaring over the footage with infomercial music chirping along in the background, but the words are too muddled for Gerry to entirely parse them. The woman cleans the plates with a metal sponge, and the dishes are circles of flesh that make heavy, unpleasant scraping noises.

“There could be another Leitner out there,” Gerry says thoughtfully. “in the Institute. Definitely are more out there in the world… somewhere. I should be going out there, but…”

“But?”

“I guess I wanted to live until thirty first.” He takes a drink. “Is that selfish?”

Michael’s look is less pointed and more of a gentle, sarcastic prod, but Gerry still feels it. “Yeah, stupid question, never mind.” _Yes, most people _want_ to live until thirty, Keay. Dunce._

“You’ve never been concerned with selfishness before.”

“I’m not. Like… I don’t give a shit if there’s a Big Grand Plan with all you Entities wrapped up in it unfolding out there. You know? It’s people I want to save. If one person is out there with a death I can prevent… or prolong the inevitable from happening, I guess… I’ll do it. I _want _to do it.”

“Now, that’s something I don’t entirely grasp,” says Michael. “You put so much - personal responsibility on yourself for the deaths of people you don’t even know. Is a man responsible for the death of a stranger if he could have spent the last week researching and preparing to help him?”

“Is a man _not _responsible for the death if he sees someone pull a knife on him and walks away? Inaction is death.”

“And death is inevitable.”

“Does that mean we should all fucking drop dead before thirty?”

“...hm. I still think you push yourself too hard.” Again, Michael puts a hand on his shoulder. The contact through his sleeve is warm and comforting. Gerry feels heavy. “It is so easy for a human to die. Every time you put yourself through the wringer for not somehow elucidating how you could have put them out of harm’s way, it’s meaningless self-flagellation. You’re allowed to live, you’re allowed to worry about yourself first. Keep that head of yours on your shoulders before you go trying to gather everyone else’s up.”

“I’m really bad at that,” Gerry grins.

“Quite bad.”

“The worst.”

“Quite possibly.”

“Good thing I have a knight in shining armor to swoop in and save me,” coos Gerry.

“You vomited on me last time that happened, I’ve learned my lesson.”

The studio audience on television roars with laughter. Looks like most of the kitchen is meat now; the lady is too focused on the linoleum to take notice. Next to him, Michael is somewhere next to Gerry’s thigh, pressed up against him in a comfortable, familiar manner. Gerry is home.

“Man,” he says, voice muffled against his arm but not enough to hide the raw, choked sound that burbles out of him, “I don’t wanna go.”

“Where would you go?” Michael asks softly.

“The Institute…?” It had all been so clear to Gerry a month ago. But knowing had been so sharp, so guilt-inducing, the certainty that Gerry was going to die. Gerry doesn’t know anything now. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, and it’s the first time he’s ever felt free.

“Are you certain you want to keep doing this then? Hunting down Leitners for the rest of your life?”

And still, Gerry says with burning certainty: “Yes.” Because as comforting as this blanket of unknowing is, Gerry can never let go of this, will never let go of this. It burns in him stronger than anything else. He braces himself for some disappointed response, the same as any other time Michael’s nonchalantly offered to twist him into some unknown creature, all for his sake. It really hurts, somehow.

“I see. Then I’ll break in with you!”

Gerry might have made a face, then.

“What?” says Michael, cheerfully.

“I…” he shakes his head. “What. What happened to nonaction.”

“Yes, well. I hate the Head Archivist as much as you do. The Eye may be the Spiral’s greatest enemy, but that means I’m _their _greatest enemy, too. Wouldn’t you say I’m formidable?” Michael’s eyes gleam with a hungry, hopeful excitement. “Besides, they still haven’t updated their security. They have doors I can open…” A hand is on his cheek. “Didn’t you say inaction was death anyway? We’re going to destroy_ so_ many statements, oh, Gerry. It’s going to be _great_.”

Gerry can’t do anything as a wide grin overtakes him, twin to Michael’s. For the longest time in his mind, Michael and the Institute have existed on opposite sides of a spectrum. Stay behind with Michael, let the Institute win. Leave Michael behind, save the world. And now Michael is stepping with him, holding the door open for him. Michael is here, with him. Michael is --

Putting two hands on either side of Gerry’s face, fingers pressing into his hair like sharp stones. He’s almost vibrating with excitement, beaming down at Gerry so wide it hurts to look at.

“What do you think?”

Gerry kisses him.

* * *

It takes him many, many moments to come back to his body, but it takes about as much time for the memories of what happened to slide back into shape, so Gerry feels it’s about even. He’d felt more than heard Michael’s whispered “_oh_.” said against his lips, mouth catching on something cold and sharp as he’d pressed a hand to the back of Michael’s neck.

Then something had happened. The longer he thinks about it, the more strongly he suspects it’s another one of Mike’s _accidents._

For half a second Gerry’s brain had gone completely blank. As in, there was _nothing_. Darkness filled his vision even as he (after he remembered how to) blinked, his hands were only faint memories of movement, he’s pretty sure his brain couldn’t even form a coherent sentence.

Then suddenly with a loud _snap_, Gerry is whipped back into his body as his ears pop, sucking in a sharp breath. He can see now, which doesn’t make anything any more comprehensible. There are sounds of talking from above him, but Gerry can understand about as well as the strange lady on television.

“Oh my God, oh my God, I’m so sorry,” someone is saying. _What are you sorry for_, Gerry tries to say, but it takes him like three minutes to remember how to unstick his jaw, so. The thought kind of slips before he can get it out.

The room slowly comes back into focus. Somehow, he’s now lying down, even though he’d just been sitting up a second ago, and - oh, his head is in Michael’s lap. That’s nice. Michael’s so nice. And panicked, considering his current expression as he runs fingers with too many joints across Gerry’s forehead.

“Mnhh,” Gerry says, which translates to _stop that._

“Oh, thank God.” Michael’s eyes are _enormous_. It’d be unsettling if it also didn’t make him look like an alien, worried puppy. “Can you talk?”

Gerry makes a so-so motion with his hand.

“I’m so sorry. You - you caught me off guard. You really...” Michael shoots him a worried glance. “Do you remember what happened?”

“I kissed you,” Gerry croaks. “Things got out of hand.”

“Quite.”

“Did you suck out my brain though my mouth?”

“I, ah.” Michael winces. “I think I briefly made you forget… everything.”

Oh. “Whoopsy.” He lifts a hand to pat Michael’s. “No harm no foul.”

Michael babbles. “I didn’t mean to do that. I’ve NO idea why that happened, it - you -” Gerry waits patiently.

“You _kissed_ me,” Michael says, covering his face with one hand.

“Yeah,” rasps Gerry.

“I…” It’s the first time he’s seen Michael even close to blushing. The color isn’t quite right, but it looks good on him. “You are going to be the death of me.”

Gerry smirks. “Inaction is death.”

That makes Michael huff out a quick, embarrassed laugh. Gerry reaches up to touch his hair. It’s entirely the wrong texture, papery and sharp and curling strands; he cards his fingers through it. He doesn’t really have a reason, other than simply wanting to know what Michael feels like. He wants to see how much Michael will let him know.

Michael leans into his touch, sighing into Gerry’s palm. “This might be a bad idea, Gerry.”

“I love bad ideas.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” Michael mutters, “but I feel as though I should warn you anyway. I’ve not felt this way since… actually, I don’t even remember ever doing this as a _human_. This is - this is really unmarked territory for me.”

“Oh, me too,” Gerry says. “The last time I had a crush on someone I was… eight. And I ended up stabbing him on the playground with a switchblade.”

Michael makes a face. “That’s not encouraging at all. Why would you tell me this?”

“I’m just _saying_ you have a better chance than that guy,” Gerry shrugs.

“I want to keep doing this. But I don’t want to accidentally erase your mind when I kiss you.”

“Maybe it’s a thing that gets better with practice?” Gerry offers hopefully.

Michael smiles at him so fondly it briefly makes Gerry’s chest ache. With _familiarity_. “Maybe.”

Being suddenly _actually_ emotionally vulnerable has made Gerry’s liquid courage flee him like a flock of birds, so he just lies there, eyes a little wide. This is probably the most dangerous impulse he’s ever acted on, and it is working out miraculously well before his eyes. Maybe he should be worried about his own health, but… honestly, Michael looks just as lost as him.

“Wanna try again?”

“Um,” is what comes out of Michael’s mouth, but he leans in anyway.

It is midnight on Gerry’s thirtieth birthday and he’s making out on his couch with a man not even adjacent to human, television noise in the background, Michael’s hands carving shapes into his hair, and Gerry is home.

* * *

` [CLICK] `

` Dad, you’re not gonna believe this. `

* * *

The security guard, after checking around that no one’s around to judge her, lets out a giant yawn. Above her, the cheap fluorescent lights buzz, threatening to flicker off if she so much as looks at them funny. She’s finished off her mostly-rancid coffee, and currently is trying to weigh whether or not it’s worth it trudging to the canteen for another cup. Sure, it’s abandoning her post, but does it count for anything when nothing ever goddamn happens?

A small voice coughs. The officer blinks up to find a disheveled-looking figure before her - wavy brown hair pulled up into a bun, bags under their eyes, wearing a stained, rumpled waitress outfit. Frazzled, but not bad-looking. Briefly, the officer wonders if it’s a bad time to ask for their number.

“Hi, um,” Mystery waitress says in a quavering, nervous voice. “I’m here t-to make a statement?”

“What’re you doing all the way down here?” The guard asks, maybe trying a little to inject some suave bravado into her voice as she approaches the hunched, shivering figure. Man, it looks like they’re freezing. Is it _that_ cold down here?

“The secretary sent me down here,” they reply. “But I think I got lost.”

“_Rosa_,” the guard scoffs under her breath. “Okay, uh, I’ll escort you to one of the statement giver’s offices, then. If you’re afraid of getting lost again, I can take you back to the entrance too.”

The waitress gives her a look like she’d offered to bury them alive, eyes wide as silver dollars. “No, it’s okay.”

Maybe it’s a little abnormal, but plenty of shaken-up people wander their way to the Archives after whatever spooky happenings they’ve gone through. Besides, it’s better than standing in place for seven hours to guard some dusty old books, so the security officer shrugs and starts leading her down the hall.

The Magnus Institute is an old, decrepit place. It’s ancient, and smells the part; there’s a musty odor to the undecorated walls like mothballs. As it is, it’s a twisting, winding labyrinth building, but the security guard doesn’t remember it taking quite so long to walk through one hallway. She decides to chalk it up to that dreadful coffee, and the fact that she’s been skipping out on cardio so much lately. Maybe she’s just forgotten how annoying this place is to navigate.

About halfway through the hall, a skittering noise comes from behind them. The guard whips her head back sharply. Nothing’s there, but she trusts her ears more than her eyes.

“What - what is it? Let’s go,” the waitress says, apparently impatient.

The guard brushes them off, ignoring manners. “I heard something.” No, that hallway _definitely_ wasn’t that long before. The security guard feels a slow, uncomfortable itching feeling crawl its way up her neck, and she draws her taser. “Ma’am, get behind me--”

When she turns back around, there’s _something_ standing next to them. It’s shaped like a person, but it couldn’t be a human; it’s stretched too tall, as if it were made in a funhouse mirror. It looks like something someone with a vague description of a human would make, if they’d never actually seen what one looked like. Something’s very wrong with its eyes.

A polite, pleasant voice burbles out of its throat, like liquid oozing out of a puncture. “What’s the matter, dear?” Its gaze passes over the guard hungrily, a predatory glint to its wide, blunt teeth. It begins reaching for her and the extended limb stretches impossibly long to touch her face. The security guard feels it smear a fingernail across her cheek.

She screams.

* * *

Gerry waits ten seconds before he knocks, pressing his ear to the door to detect movement. There are muffled shuffling sounds. Then Michael’s voice says something melodic and sharp, then a shrill, terrified noise. Silence.

Gerry knocks on the door then. “Is she gone?”

“Yes, come in!” The door does nothing to muffle the joy palpable in Michael’s voice. Gerry twists the knob, and the familiar smell of dust and plaster, of the Archive, hits him once again. He breathes in deep.

“Did you _see_ her face?!” Michael is cackling to himself like an excitable schoolboy. There’s no sign of the security guard, except an abandoned taser on the ground. “Oh, she was _terrified_ out of her wits! She had no idea what she was looking at...”

“Sorry, Clara,” Gerry says, hoping that he comes off as apologetic and not insincere.

“Whatever.” Clara brushes off her dress with a shaking hand. “Just… get me out of here already. I never want to see you two again.”

Gerry nudges Michael’s side. With an obedient nod, a door with a sickly yellow frame appears in the wall, nestled comfortably between storage closets as if it had always been there. Clara hurries for the exit immediately and doesn’t stop to return Gerry’s awkward wave, which of course, he doesn’t hold her in too much contempt for.

She walks through the door frame, and the wall swallows her until there’s nothing but smooth plaster.

“What a nice girl,” Michael muses fondly.

“The guard?”

“Not dead. Screaming, though.” Michael runs a hand up his neck like he can _feel _it, fingers twitching delightedly.

Gerry kisses him. “Don’t look so happy about it. Now follow me.” Adrenaline buzzing though his system, he grabs Michael by the hand and tugs him in the direction of the Archival Library.

Ceiling light after ceiling light passes over them as they run down the long, winding corridors of the institute. Gerry can’t help a big, stupid grin from growing on his face. He feels utterly giddy, his heart hammering in his chest, as if they’re two delinquent teens who just yanked the fire alarm and are bolting from security and not breaking into a highly anomalous building -- is this how they’ll date, now? Weekend excursions to burn Leitners? Gerry’s never been more thrilled at the prospect of dating in his _life_.

The library is a stark contrast to most of the Archives. Instead of being a ramshackle, unorganized mess, the place is utterly massive and well-kept. Books line the shelves labeled A to Z by category of supernatural incidents, each neatly labeled and kept in order by staff members. If it weren’t the Institute, it’d be a cozy, even pleasant place. As it is, though, the atmosphere is cold, calculated, reeking of the Beholding. Gerry feels the itch to light the place up right here, watch Robinson’s research go up in smoke.

He feels Michael utterly _vibrate_ next to him with the desire to do the same -- to destroy all that knowledge, that direct pipeline to the Eye -- but Gerry’s supposed to be the responsible one, so he pulls Michael away before he can start wreaking too much havoc.

“This place connects to the Head Archivist’s office,” he whispers, gesturing to the aforementioned door, “which connects to Artefact Storage.”

Michael peeks around the corner. No one appears to be around, unsurprising considering it’s an off day for staff. “Do you think Gertrude is in there?”

“Doubt it.”

“I hope she is.” Michael’s eyes are bright and murderous.

Gerry reaches up and presses their foreheads together. “Hey, hey. Focus.”

“Focus,” Michael repeats, letting out a quick breath.

“The Leitners.”

“Yes…” Michael hums, a strained note in his voice.

Gerry can still sense the beast circling within in him, hungering. Michael has been, under the skin, always been hurting. Always so _angry_ for what Gertrude did to him - what she did to Michael Shelley the beloved, beleaguered assistant, so willing to throw away everything for her, and in the end thrown away. Michael has been festering in that itch, the need to take revenge for _decades_. Finally the restraint is starting to crack.

But despite all that, despite all the _hunger_ \-- Michael is holding back. For Gerry. If that’s not just the most _romantic_ shit in the world, Gerry will eat a statement.

“How about this,” he says. He brushes a thumb against the uneven plane of Michael’s cheek. “We go in. We take what we need to take. And if she’s in there, I’ll let you maim her. Twist her into a goddamn pretzel if you want.” Gertrude Robinson can be torn apart by the monsters she’s invoked. It’s only karmic.

Michael’s eyes widen. A shudder of excitement visibly runs through him like an electric wave.

“I love you,” he breathes.

Gerry grins at him. “Ready?”

* * *

Gerry takes _way _too much pleasure in splintering the door with the heel of his boot. Hey, Michael’s not the only one with repressed anger issues after all. He kicks it to the ground where it lands with a satisfying thud, a cloud of dust blooming from the impact, and he steps over it to examine the interior.

As it turns out, Gertrude Robinson is not there, conspicuously absent from her office as usual when it comes to raids on the Institute. In her place, a short, mousy man with glasses and a _hideously _ill-fitting jumper sits at her desk, examining a spread of documents that, at a glance, appear to concern some ornately painted urns from somewhere in India. There is a cup of tea on his desk. His jaw drops when Gerry breaks the door down, startling enough to send papers flying, scattering them across the carpet in a flurry of white.

Michael is instantly upon him. It’s not like Michael’s human facade ever looked _entirely_ right, but now it’s slipping off of him in rivulets. His eyes are dark pits in a lumpy, misshapen face, rows of sinewy teeth sprouting in a thick spiral from the maw that used to be his mouth. A large hand is wrapped around the researcher’s throat.

“Wait -- leave him, leave him, leave him,” Gerry says quickly as he watches Michael lift the researcher by the neck until his kicking legs dangle above the floor. The man is trying to yell but the air is being crushed out of his windpipe, and his face is rapidly turning a concerning shade of purple.

Michael hesitates, brow furrowing like he’s trying to remember what Gerry’s words mean. “But…”

“You promised not to kill anyone except Gertrude, and she’s not here. We need him to know where the Leitner is. It’s not Gertrude, Michael, put him down.” Michael hesitates. Gerry adds a tentative, “please.”

Michael takes a long breath. Slowly, visibly trembling with restraint, he places the researcher down and takes a step back.

Immediately the man collapses onto his back, coughing and clawing at his throat. Details come back to Michael in blotches, like ink being dripped onto paper from an overhead brush, until he looks semi-humanoid again.

“_Excuse_ me,” he says, a tone of almost-embarrassment in his voice. Gerry just squeezes his hand.

The researcher finally recovers enough to stop coughing, taking deep heaving gasps of air as he looks back up at the two intruders.

“Who are you?” he barks in a tone _way _too demanding for someone who was about to be eaten by a shapeshifting fear monster two seconds. “How - how did you get into a restricted area?”

“How ’bout _we_ ask the questions,” Gerry drawls, strolling closer to him, baseball bat in hand. The researcher shuffles backwards on his elbows a few paces and ends up knocking the back of his head against the desk.

“Don’t come any closer or--” Scrambling around for a weapon, the researcher ends up brandishing a stapler gun. Gerry suppresses a snort.

“Don’t bother trying to phone the police.” He kneels and brushes off the stapler with one hand. The researcher visibly bites down a curse. Michael looms behind him, leering down at the researcher predatorily. “We’re looking for something of yours, and if you hand it over without fussing, you’ll make it out in one piece easy.”

“It doesn’t need to be that easy,” Michael grins, “if you resist, though.”

The researcher is visibly shaken, though he tries to hide it with a glare. Impressively tenacious for most of Michael’s victims. “What - what do you want.”

“Ever heard of Jurgen Leitner?” The researcher’s face scrunches up like he’s just taken a whiff of spoiled milk. “Yeah, me too. I’m looking for his books. You’re gonna tell me where they are.”

The researcher’s eyes dart around. “I’m just a research assistant. How - how do you know they’ve told me where they are?”

“I have a hunch,” Gerry replies simply. Casually he taps his baseball bat against the ground. “It’s a weekend. Everyone else in the Archives has gone home except for you. You’re doing research on Himalayan cryptids and haunted pots. You’re a responsible worker, you like finding stuff out. And if you’re working in Artefact Storage, which I assume is where those urns are, you know damn well what a Leitner is.”

The researcher swallows. Gerry can see the equations flying by behind his glasses, trying to calculate which action will and which won’t land him with a busted skull.

“Where are they,” Gerry’s eyes skim over the researcher’s crooked name tag. “... Jon?”

“In - in the seventh storage locker down the hall. The combination is one-seventeen-twenty three. They have it in a container.”

Gerry kindly doesn’t mention he’s planning on just busting through the locker door. “See, was that so hard?” He stands. “Is that the only one you guys have?”

“Yes.” Jon’s eyes are flitting over to a nearby paper. “That’s all we have in storage--”

“The ones you’re researching are a different story, huh?” Gerry leans down, plucks the offending document from the ground, reads over it briefly. It’s a list of potential Leitners dotted across Europe, and judging by all the scribbled pen annotations, it looks recent. Jon glowers.

Gerry grins and stuffs it into his back pocket. “Thanks, Jon. I owe you one.” He turns to Michael. “Do your thing?”

“With pleasure.” Michael turns to Jon, who jolts back and presses himself against the desk even more. He kneels, taking one hand and pressing it to Jon’s cheek, examining him… and with the other, slaps Jon once across the face with enough force to send him sprawling to the floor. Gerry blinks.

Jon is unconscious. Gerry looks up at Michael. “Is that normally how you do memory wipes?”

“No,” Michael says cheerfully. “Shall we go?”

They toss Jon’s limp body in one of the lockers and close the door. Artefact Storage is darker than the other rooms of the Institute, the corners dusty with spindly cobwebs. The musty smell is getting worse. It feels like the deeper they walk into the corridors, the more palpably ancient the building gets. Gerry wonders if there’s an end.

There are rows of artifacts displayed on pedestals like twisted museum exhibits. Some of them are behind glass walls, presumably the more actively lethal ones, but others are just out for anyone to poke and prod at. An intricately carved oak cabinet, the doors soundly padlocked and chained shut. A marble table with a winding, strangely entrancing fractal pattern. Michael perks up as he recognizes some of them, recounting the tales to Gerry in a whispered tone as they walk by.

“Oh, that vanity mirror, I _loved_ using that. So many prideful spirits broken.” Michael _oohs_ as they pass a skeleton key sealed in resin. “Did you know that key, it leads you to the wrong rooms if you use it? After a while, it doesn’t even need to be in your hand to affect you.” He giggles.

“I can’t believe they just leave all this stuff in one room,” says Gerry. “Isn’t it a risk having all these dangerous things in a room, with all the Entities they’re tied to?”

Michael hums. His hand rests on the small of Gerry’s back, as if they’re at an art gallery browsing the paintings. “Actually, it’s not a bad idea, though I’m sure they don’t know the _real_ reason why it’s effective. Not all Entities mesh with each other you see, though the ones with overlap - a Vast place can also be very Lonely - they tend to get along well. The Vast and the Buried, though? Irreconcilable. Diametrically opposed by _nature_. So putting two of their artifacts together isn’t likely to... tempt them to your location, as a head-on confrontation is too high risk.”

“Is it a high risk for _you_ to be here?”

“Perhaps,” Michael smiles delicately. “But I am also high risk to _them_.”

Storage locker seven is easy enough to bust open. Gerry goes for the lock, but before he can, Michael simply reaches _into_ the door and peels it back like a poster, casting it to the ground like a discarded wrapper. The assorted books don’t look at all like apocalyptic artifacts of doom and terror; they look more like leftover items from the library, shoved into a box and forgotten. A self-care pamphlet titled _Love Yourself and You Forever!_ A thick manual detailing the mechanisms of car engines with only a long string of indecipherable numbers on the cover. One doesn’t even look like it should _count _as a book as it’s only a sheet of paper folded into itself to make a crude card, the front is covered in crayon scribbles in a child’s handwriting.

There’s one thing they all share, though. Jurgen Leitner’s name, inked carefully in some places, scrawled hastily in others. Gerry knows better than to judge them by appearance.

Gingerly he levers them into an empty rucksack. Most Leitners aren’t activated by touch alone -- the supernatural effects usually only take place when they’re read. But he’s not about to risk accidentally giving himself a magical paper cut and becoming a book zombie, which would definitely rank as the most personally embarrassing possible death he could achieve.

For a moment it really feels like that’s it. They’ve done it. Neither of them move. For a few long seconds, everything in the Archives seems to freeze in place.

Then the wall behind them starts bulging out, and Gerry wonders why he bothers hoping.

“I’m surprised you’re still alive.” Annabelle lifts her skirts as she delicately steps through the hole in the wall, from which hundreds of spiders pour out of and over the floor. As they skitter, a thousand hissing, scuttling voices rasp in unison from all around them. _Gerard Keay._

Michael steps in front of Gerry and Annabelle smiles, as if she’s watching a small puppy defend its toy. “Michael, be reasonable. He won’t last another decade on the run like this.”

“This isn’t your domain, spider.” Michael’s lips quirk up into a menacing, eerie snarl of a smile. “Licking the Eye’s boots again?”

“The Beholding has been my ally for many years.” She circles them slowly. “I have _loyalty_ to my own kind, you know.”

Michael bristles almost imperceptibly. “What has the Eye ever done to deserve my loyalty?” he scoffs. “And I have no loyalty to _you_. What have you ever been for me except a fly on the wall? You’ve only ever been a passive observer at most, a thorn in my side at worst.”

“Spiders eat flies.” Even at Michael’s impressive stature, Annabelle towers over them. Her feet aren’t touching the ground, Gerry realizes. Her legs bend the wrong way in too many places. “And he is less than an insect to us, Michael.”

“To _you_.”

“_War_ is coming,” Annabelle snaps. “I was hoping you’d see that without needing to tug your strings, but no. You’re all foolhardy. None of you _ever_ look at the bigger picture, not even the Eye, truly. Don’t you _feel_ it? The playing field for us Entities is changing.”

Michael levels an utterly unconcerned look at her. “Maybe. The correlation to that and what we’re doing is?”

“I’m trying to get you to _focus_, you imbecile. You only have eyes for something that will last you barely a blink in your lifetime.” She turns to Gerry, briefly all politeness and curt apologeticness. “No offense.” She swings back to Michael. “You need to get your head out of whatever cloud you’ve lost it in and remember _what you are_.”

“I know I’m more powerful than you on any given day of the week.” Michael rises to his full height. “You don’t _know_ what I am, Annabelle.”

“Clearly,” Annabelle snarls. “I took you for someone smarter.” With a horrible snapping sound, Annabelle lunges, tackling Michael full force and sending both of them crashing into an exhibit. Something shoves Gerry in the chest and he stumbles back. His hand gets caught in something sticky -- as he wrenches it back, he realizes it’s a thick strand of spiderweb. The room is being filled with them -- massive cobwebs stretching from one side of the room to the other, from the floor to the ceiling, spiders weaving at impossible speeds. Several are crawling onto his shoe and up his leg, and he quickly swats them off.

It’s becoming increasingly hard to see, even more so as the already-dim lights overhead begin to be blocked out by cobweb. Gerry can just barely make out Michael and Annabelle’s shapes moving on the opposite wall, but he can hear the _sounds_. Tearing, guttural noises echo throughout the corridor, horrible noises that sound almost like human screaming, and there’s no way to tell who’s making them.

Head spinning, Gerry stumbles forward, using his bat to break the webs being spun before him. The floor is a living carpet of spiders. He feels them getting crushed under his feet as he moves, just as many swarming forward to replace them. Faintly, he feels a pang of pity for whoever’s got to do cleanup afterwards.

The corridor is longer now. It’s heading down now, instead of straight across, the floor bending and warping under Gerry’s boots like quicksand. It’s getting _dark._ A foul smell is beginning to permeate the air, like old, rotten blood.

“Michael?” He calls out, and gets a mouthful of spider web. He’s in the process of spitting it out when a hand materializes out of the dark, squeezing his shoulder.

“You need to leave,” Michael gasps. Flaps of skin are hanging off him where Annabelle had gouged him, one of his eye sockets oozing a dark, viscous liquid. Gerry’s never seen him physically damaged before. It makes his stomach drop, his head buzz with panic, he has the ludicrous urge to escort Michael to safety as if Michael’s not the one who can rip a man’s head off his shoulders.

“There’s nowhere to go,” Gerry says quickly.

“The door.” And then there is a door, pushed slightly open, with a yellow door frame. Gerry looks up at Michael. Michael’s eyes are pleading.

Gerry grabs his hand. “No, fuck you. I’m not leaving you to die, asshole.”

“But--”

“_Think_, okay? We’re surrounded by fucking - supernatural artifacts that were tossed in here for being dangerous, there’s gotta be--” There’s a terrible screech. Gerry looks up to find Annabelle on the ceiling. She has far too many limbs moving in too many directions. Her neck snaps around at a painful angle as she turns to face them before she lunges at them, mangled arms outstretched.

In the moment of blind panic, Gerry doesn’t think. He scrabbles around blindly, breaking through threads of spider web, before his fingers wrap around the blunt handle of a heavy, pointed object. Immediately his hand bursts into acrid, burning pain; it licks up his hands like a flame, there’s no light or warmth or any physical sign of being there but he can feel his skin crackle and blister all the same.

Gerry wrenches it up to his chest before he can lose his nerve. Annabelle falls toward him and, eyes squeezed shut, Gerry thrusts the blade up with all the strength he can muster.

There’s a horrible hiss. It sounds like something being fried. Annabelle makes a horrible, winded noise from inches above him; he cracks his eyes open to find the blackened hilt of his weapon -- a spear? -- protruding from Annabelle’s right eye. Her face is twisted into an slack-jawed expression of disbelief.

The spiders scatter so quickly it’s only minutes before the floor of the Archives is bare once again, the only sign of there ever having been a change being the occasional strand of cobweb strewn about, and some crushed spider husks. Annabelle is gone. Gerry doesn’t know if she’d just disappeared or if he’d blacked out briefly, he can’t tell when his head is pulsing hard enough to burst. He drops the spear with a pained grunt, and when he tries to move his fingers, pain blasts through him again.

Michael is saying something. Already the gashes are starting to close themselves up, pressing themselves into tight spirals, and Gerry lets out a sigh of relief he didn’t know he was holding.

Abruptly he finds himself being tugged to his feet, thankfully by the good hand, and being half-escorted, half-shoved into a faintly tilted doorway with a yellow frame. Michael’s corridors don’t feel like the ones in the Archives. They’re familiar, they smell like him and not dusty office supplies, they wind in dizzying spirals and corkscrews that Michael and Gerry are barreling down hand-in-hand. Gerry almost looks behind him to see if someone’s pursuing them, but before he can get a glimpse, they’re already through the other side. Gerry nearly trips.

Michael tugs Gerry through the door, moves lightning-fast to slam the door shut, and manages to get it locked just before the loud _thump _of something heavy and unpleasant comes from the other side. There’s a frantic, angry hammering sound like five arms knocking at once, then Gerry blinks and the door is gone. They’re in the apartment. It’s suddenly silent.

Gerry and Michael’s eyes meet. Then, in unison, both of them break into hysterical, giddy laughter. Michael surges forward and lifts him, pulling him into a ridiculous twirl that makes Gerry’s feet dangle above the carpet. Gerry laughs so hard he snorts, his whole body buzzing with adrenaline and excitement and so much misplaced happiness he wonders what’s _wrong _with him, he nearly died and they broke into the fucking Magnus Institute and they _stole Leitners_ and they _survived_. He doesn’t even feel the pain in his hand anymore. Michael is babbling about something, but Gerry’s having no luck following with all the blood rushing in his ears.

Michael kisses him, and Gerry kisses back. They nearly keel over because all of their combined weight shifts onto Michael, who’s lifting Gerry up in his arms. Gerry is absolutely incensed that his fucking eldritch abomination boyfriend has never pulled that trick before. He could have been making out with Michael without standing this _whole time._

“Do we have the books still,” Michael pipes up between kisses. Gerry blanks on that for a moment, but then tugs up the rucksack with all the assorted Leitners piled in them. “Here we are.”

“We should burn those.”

“Probably.” They keep holding each other, though. Stealing kisses like they’re starving for it, as if the clock is still ticking even though their pursuers are by now halfway down a chute to Ny Alesund. Gerry feels vaguely like an addict, the way he keeps pulling Michael back by the lapels to press their lips together. He’s got no idea why. There’s an important thing to do and probably more things coming after, but Michael is _right there._

“You didn’t kill that security guard, did you?”

“No. She’s still in my tunnels, but she’ll find her way out.” Michael presses another kiss to Gerry’s neck. “You know, eventually.”

“_Michael_. Let her out now.”

He sighs dolefully. “I can never say no to you. You know I have to eat, right? Can’t keep catching and releasing prey forever.”

“Why don’t you kidnap someone who actually deserves it for once? What about that spider lady?”

“I’m not going to _eat_ Annabelle,” Michael says, revolted. “We have tea planned later.”

“She tried to kill you.”

“I tried to kill _her_! Funny how things even out in the end, isn’t it?”

Gerry lets out a puff of laughter. “God you guys are so fuckin’ weird. I’ll never understand you.”

“That’s a good thing,” Michael says immediately. “And I doubt you’d want to, anyway.” His arms wrap long and heavy around Gerry’s shoulders, enveloping him in a warm, alien hold.

“I wish I could,” Gerry mumbles against Michael’s shoulder. “I want to know who you are.”

“Gerry,” Michael says softly, “You know me better than anyone else.”

Gerry squeezes his eyes shut, and leans into the embrace. Forever doesn’t exist, but he can pretend that it does when it’s just Michael and him, sitting together in each other’s arms. Maybe Michael can stretch their time together into something close to eternity, and that might be enough.

* * *

_“...Michael, get off me…”_

_“Never,” Michael purrs into Gerry’s neck, a month ago now._

_Gerry huffs at him. He’s not yet gone and put on his makeup, so his face is ruddy and uncontoured, mussed with sleep. The hair spilling over his eyes is starting to fray into its natural blonde at the ends. Michael finds the sight unspeakably dear. He’s the only one who’ll ever bear witness to it, and the knowledge of that fact is thrilling._

_Insistently, Gerry prods Michael with a foot. “Off.”_

_Michael fakes a yawn, stretching an arm over Gerry and subtly-not-subtly wrapping himself even tighter around him, cheerfully ignoring Gerry’s indignant squawk of protest. “Michael, oh my fucking God.”_

_“Gerry my dear, you’ve never wanted to wake up early in your entire life.”_

_“Yeah but shut up. I’m gonna miss my train.” Gerry makes a half-hearted attempt to push his way out of Michael’s arms and gives up quickly, letting himself be held with an exasperated sigh. “These tickets are non-refundable, you know.”_

_“Then let’s steal from a bank.”_

_“Michael,” Gerry mutters, voice fond and annoyed and familiar all at once, “I know you don’t want me to leave, but I kind of have to. Just for today, okay?”_

_Michael tries for a pout. From the quirked eyebrow on Gerry’s face, it lands more in the territory of ’dog with rabies’. “I still don’t know why I can’t go with you.”_

_“Because they told me? Specifically?”_

_“People are so rude sometimes,” Michael grumbles. “Can a not-man escort his boyfriend down to a train station in peace?”_

_“Honestly from the sound of it, the place would fuck you up as much as you’d fuck _them_ up. You know, the Corruption, not too fond of you.” Absentmindedly, Gerry traces little circles into Michael’s skin. Michael tries not to let _too _much pleasedness show in his face. “I’ve actually been here before as well. It’s a quick pop in and pop out. If anything happens, I’ll call you, and then you can be all knight in shining armor and save my ass.”_

_Michael distantly acknowledges there’s work to be done. Books to be burned and all that, yadda yadda. It seems so unimportant right now? At least compared to Gerry. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, grunting as he works a comb through the knots in his hair. Michael levers himself up and starts gliding his fingers through easily, tracing undefinable patterns, twisting it into a braid._

_“Please don’t leave,” he murmurs into the top of Gerry’s head._

_Gerry lets out a sigh. “I have to.” He reaches back and squeezes Michael’s knee. “I know you’re worried about me.”_

_And Michael is. After all this time, honestly, Michael still doesn’t entirely fathom the whole point of Gerry’s quest, his willingness to chuck himself wholesale into the unknown for the sake of a few dusty tomes. He recognizes that hunger in Gerry to destroy them, almost reminiscent of the Lightless and their campaign to burn the world; except, where they bring nothing but destruction and pain, Gerry brings a little bit of light back into the world, a little bit of hope. He cares so much about people, insignificant people._

_Michael doesn’t understand, but he knows it’s important to Gerry, maybe even more than Michael himself. He doesn’t begrudge him for it. Michael is a creature of hunger too. He will abstain from it if Gerry asks, and, ultimately, he would let Gerry go if he requested it, even if it feels like getting stabbed in the chest. There’s not much he _wouldn’t _do._

_He tells Gerry as such, and Gerry looks at him with a soft, sad expression before kissing him._

_“I know,” he whispers against Michael’s lips._

_It is the last time Michael ever sees Gerry’s face._

* * *

Gertrude Robinson, as far as the Magnus Institute is concerned, has never had an assistant.

Gertrude is known among her colleagues as a hard woman, fiercely independent. It’s a reputation preceded by decades of research into the endless, cold, empty corners of the world, one or two preventions of rituals orchestrated by forces beyond human comprehension. To the very, very few people who know her, the idea of Gertrude Robinson having a bumbling assistant is an absurd, vaguely impossible concept.

But that hadn’t been true, hadn’t it? Corpses don’t simply disappear when out of sight. They twist, and fester, and warp into other things.

It is a pleasant afternoon. Sunlight is spilling through the window in Gertrude’s office, where the head Archivist sits at her desk, stirring a spoon absentmindedly into her tea. The air is heavy with an all-encompassing, comfortable silence.

She hears him before she sees him. She’s got half a mind to be surprised, but the Spiral tends to pop up when one least expects it -- Gertrude barely gets out a curt “Michael--” before she is thrown backwards into a wall, the plaster malleable and warping around her, pulling her in. She lands on her back in a location she’s never seen before -- long pillars of waxy, sickly-looking spirals, the air sharp and stagnant. There is no ceiling but there’s also no sky.

She tries to get to her feet as the tall, sandy-haired figure approaches. Michael reaches out and snaps her tendon with unsettling ease, and she collapses again with a cry of pain. It isn’t bleeding, but something tells her Michael will draw blood from her yet.

“Michael,” she tries again, but is cut off.

“Where is he.” Michael’s voice has _never_ sounded like that. It’s not lilting and carefree, but monotone, wracked with unmistakable pain. Gertrude finds herself taken aback, deep everything.

She struggles to keep her own voice calm. “Don’t.... I am unaware of who you’re talking about--”

“Don’t you _fucking_ dare,” it snarls, voice twisted with unbidden anger, with _rage_. The room screams with him, it echoes painfully in Gertrude’s ears. “You _know _who I’m talking about, you _witch_.”

He lifts her by the throat, pointed fingers digging into her neck and under her skin. “What have you _done_ to him.”

Gertrude gasps for breath through the pain. “Stop,” she manages to croak. It’s the only thing she can think to do.

“I won’t.” And suddenly Michael lets out a long, cackling laugh. “I won’t stop. For the rest of my life, I will never stop _hurting_ you, Gertrude Robinson. I didn’t think -- I didn’t think it was possible that I could lose anything else, after what you did to me.” His grip tightens. “But no. It seems you’ve done it twice.”

The whole room around him seems to pulse. “You won’t die. But I’d like to see how you, little Beholding servant, find your way around this place without eyes.”

“He isn’t dead,” chokes out Gertrude.

Michael’s fingers freeze centimeters away from her eye, his expression falling away into undisguised shock. He stammers out a stunned, “What?” In that moment, Gertrude is reminded so strongly of Michael Shelley that her chest aches.

“Take your fingers out of my windpipe, Michael, and perhaps I’ll tell you,” she rasps. A few long moments pass, and Michael relinquishes her from his grasp, standing there as she takes in a few choked inhales.

“Michael,” Gertrude says after a while, expression settling back into her usual unaffected demeanor despite her mangled leg, “I shouldn’t be telling you about this.”

“It’s not about you anymore, Gertrude.”

“You could die.”

Michael fixes her with a hard stare. “I. Don’t. _Care_.”

Gertrude sighs. “I underestimated you. How much you have come to… care about that boy.”

“Caring about people got me into this mess in the first place,” Michael sneers. _Caring about you_, he doesn’t have to say.

“Michael.” She closes her eyes. “I’m sor--”

“Don’t say it.” Michael’s face is grave, fists trembling. “You _cannot_ apologize to me now. That would mean you’re capable of _regretting _it. You could have stopped at any time, you could have saved me, and you didn’t.” He glares at her. “And I don’t need saving from what I am now.”

Gertrude hesitates. “Of course you don’t.” Michael stares ahead into the swirling void of the Spiral, refusing to look at her. “It was his mother who did it. Mary Keay, quite the… character. She bound him to one of her books. If it worked… it is keeping him in a state of undeath. His soul has been prevented from passing on.”

She pauses to gauge any response, but Michael says nothing. Sighing, she continues. “I don’t know how successful it was. Not every attempt Mary made was on the mark, let’s say, and some of the people who she’s brought back are… changed.” Her eyes close. “I don’t know if Gerard is alive, and if he is, there’s no guarantee that he is entirely himself.”

“I don’t care,” Michael whispers again. “I’ll bring him back. I’ll take him into the Spiral if I have to.”

Gertrude hums. “Are you sure he’d want that?”

“Being _changed_ is better than being _gone_!” Michael snaps. “I’d rather have a sliver of what Gerry used to be, a faint imprint, than to lose him forever. I don’t even have a corpse to mourn.” His voice grows shrill, strangled. “He’s the only thing that matters, do you understand? He’s the only reason I kept existing as -- myself.”

Gertrude tilts her head inquisitively. Still analyzing, still hungering for knowledge, even in the domain of the Unknown. Michael could laugh. “You do seem to have a… firmer grasp in this form.”

“I still hate it.” He will still never say he _is _Michael Shelley. Once was, perhaps, but never again. He is an irreversible, irreconcilable fact. “But he loved this form, so. It couldn’t have been so bad, could it?” He lets out a bitter chuckle. There’s moisture running down his face, and he can’t stop it. “It really is ridiculous. He domesticated me.”

“You love him very much.” Michael doesn’t bother trying to deny it. He can only obscure facts, not bend them. Gertrude adjusts her glasses. “I know you don’t want an apology. But I really do wish this didn’t… that it didn’t have to happen.”

“Yes, well.” Michael wipes his face. “Me too.”

“You wouldn’t be in the wrong for killing me,” Gertrude says, “but if you would fix my leg and let me out, it would be... beneficial for both of us.”

Michael is silent.

“I will tell you where he is. I can’t guarantee you anything. But I can tell you where he is.”

Michael exhales.

“...I’m tired,” he says, finally.

Gertrude rises to her feet. Her face is determined and solemn. “I know.”

* * *

“I would like you to tell me,” Michael says, with a fair amount of effort not to raise his voice, “Exactly why Gerry Keay is now a _page in a book_ at _an undisclosed location_.”

Gertrude, damn her, looks nonplussed. “His mother, mostly. Mary Keay was a particularly unpleasant character, even for the Institute, and she was an experimenter in dark magic. Fancied herself the heir to a legacy family, like those Lukases.” Michael’s ambivalence toward the Lukas family immediately begins sliding towards mild hatred. “She bound herself to a book of arcane knowledge. I’ve no record of seeing her after her supposed death, but apparently getting skinned didn’t put her down for long.”

Michael remembers the nightmares Gerry would wake up to. How he screamed. Michael hates.

“You don’t have the book?”

“It is destroyed,” Gertrude responds.

“And yet, Gerry is apparently bound to it.”

She takes a deep breath. “I bound him.” Michael _hates_. He senses that she knows, and he smiles when she takes a step away from it. “I needed the information, Michael. The rituals were all preceding and I had no way to stop them without knowing how, where, and why they would happen.” Her eyes glitter cold and determined. “It was to save the world.”

_I hate you so much_, Michael thinks.

As if reading his mind, she tilts her head towards him and says, “It worked.”

In Artefact Storage Gertrude unlocks the safe briskly and almost calmly. Around him, he can feel the Beholding’s eyes burn and tug and whisper, now no longer accompanied in the domain of his enemy, Michael is vulnerable to their _looking_, to their _knowledge_. He wants to tear the place apart but he grits his teeth, settles for blocking out the prying stares.

_You can’t know me_, he thinks desperately,_ I won’t allow it. Only one person can know me._

From the safe, Gertrude retrieves a battered notebook and a crumpled sheet of paper that, upon closer inspection, has a set of coordinates.

“I transferred Gerry to this site, to stop him from falling into the wrong hands. Burn these when you’re done,” she says, handing the scrap to Michael along with the notebook. Saying it makes an odd note of pain twist across her face, and Michael feels cold satisfaction. “Some information isn’t... meant to be shared.”

Michael takes them. The fragment points to the Pu Songling Research Center in China.

For a few seconds he holds them, doesn’t do anything for a moment. He watches Gertrude. “You know this doesn’t change anything, right? I’m not going to forgive you because you helped me?”

“I figured not,” Gertrude sighs. “You’re not… obligated to, in any case. I _have _hurt you, probably too much for reconciliation.” She makes a sound in the back of her throat. “As much as an allyship with the Spiral would have benefited us. Some pairings are not meant to be, it seems.”

“You don’t think I can bring him back,” Michael says simply, “and I’m going to prove you wrong. I’ll find a way to make it happen.”

_You won’t_, Gertrude’s expression says. In reality, she replies, “I hope you will. Gerard Keay has suffered enough at our hands, and his mother’s.”

Michael hums. “I guess we’ll have to see.”

“How did you come to meet that boy, anyway?”

He twists open the knob of a yellow-framed door. “Goodbye, Gertrude. Thank you for the coordinates.”

* * *

_It’s when night falls on the first day that Michael well and truly starts panicking._

_Gerry’s phone goes to voicemail. He spends hours tearing through the town, calling his name. There’s no sign of him anywhere. In desperation he steps into the place Gerry had last gone, the place of corruption and pain and rot. and is thrust into agony as soon as he enters. Still, he calls for Gerry._

_He finds Gerry’s phone among a pile of squirming maggots, still displaying the text he’d last sent._

See you soon.

_Michael begins to crumble._

* * *

“I’m sorry,” the head librarian, Zhang Xiaoling, says. “We have no record of the book you’re looking for here.”

“What about a man named Gerard Keay? Any mention of him?” Michael tries politely.

The librarian shakes her head. “The only thing I have is an address I could point you to in Washington D.C. Why do you ask?” She tilts her head, tapping her lips with a pen thoughtfully. “Are you Gertrude’s assistant, by any chance?”

“Oh, more of a colleague,” Michael smiles, and it doesn’t reach anywhere near his eyes.

* * *

_He keeps searching, but there are so many potential loose ends that all seem to come up to nothing that the task seems impossibly daunting, a heavy lump of dread settling in Michael’s stomach every time he so much as thinks of doing so. He stops leaving the apartment. He doesn’t want to return to find the bed doesn’t smell like Gerry anymore, or that he’s missed a message pleading for Michael to save him._

_For the first time in many months, Michael sits in place, and waits._

* * *

Michael doesn’t flinch when the knife blade plunges into him. He casts an annoyed glance at the wide-eyed Hunter who’d done so, for whom it’s quickly dawning upon that his arm is now soundly stuck in Michael’s side.

“Do you _mind?”_ Michael throws the man halfway across the street. He hits the asphalt with a grunt, turning tail, but Michael catches up to him easily, a game of cat and mouse he is adept at. He lets his human face slide off and feels the terror from the Hunter wash over him, hunger surging forward as a starving man is to the smell of a feast, and it dawns on him just how long it’s been since he’s claimed another victim.

Oh well, he thinks as the policeman screams from beneath him, no one’s around to stop him anymore.

“Wow, uh, yikes.”

Michael turns, slowly, to face two figures on the precipice of the street, highlighted against the glowing street lamp. One is a young woman, hair cut short, a scar bisecting her left eyebrow. The other, an older, more grizzled man sporting a gray beard and terribly unkempt hair.

“What.” Michael says, his tongue tingling with the taste of blood. “Can’t I have a meal every now and then?”

The two look at each other. “Monsters aren’t usually so eager to feed in public,” the young woman says.

“Usually it’s the young and stupid ones,” the old man pipes up.

“You, however? You look old. You’ve been around a long time, haven’t you?”

Michael sighs through his nose. “Um, yes, perhaps. I do apologize. You’ve caught me in a very strange position.” He drops the body of the mutilated Hunter to the floor. “You see, currently, I honestly couldn’t give a _shit _about who looks. Normally I would, you see. It’s just been an off few,” he pauses, “months. I’ve been chasing neverending leads. I am coming home to an empty apartment every night. There’s something in me that’s gone, maybe forever, and the urge to sit in one place and rot until the heat death of the sun is becoming more tempting by the day. But I cannot, until I’m done with this goose chase that’ll likely amount to nothing in the end.”

The two stare at him.

“Spiral,” the woman says.

“Ate a bloke, but then again, he’s the one who stabbed first,” replies the old man.

“Oi circle beastie.” Michael looks up at her tiredly. “Will you stop eating civilians if we help you find... whatever? I’d just kill you most days, but you’re in a pretty sorry state already.”

Michael inhales.

“Do you,” he tries, “know who Gerard Keay is?”

The old man’s face lights up in recognition, the woman’s eyes narrow.

“The chap in that gnarly old skin book?” Old man taps his chin in contemplation. “That boy is rude, you know. Horrible at giving answers.”

“We gave it to someone. Struck a deal, they get to borrow it for a little while for a pretty penny.” The young woman squints, angling her weapon a bit closer to Michael’s head. “Why do you want him?”

“Personal reasons.” Michael wishes lies still came to him easily. “If I get him, you’ll never see my face here again.”

The old man lets out a ’hmm’, looking to the young woman. “Julia, what do you say?”

Julia shrugs. “We were going to steal him back anyway.”

* * *

_It’s only after Gerry’s disappearance that Michael realizes how intertwined their lives have become. The hole left by his absence feels all-encompassing, like part of Michael went missing with him._

_He pores over the notes Gerry left behind. He wonders if there’s a Leitner that could turn back the pages of time, let him see his face just one time. Of course, Gerry would view this as blasphemy; Michael says desperate times call for desperate measures._

_One morning he’s sorting through all the research they’d done on Ny Alesund, nostalgia and heartache all at once settling in his throat, when he uncovers a duffel bag he hasn’t seen before. It’s tucked away almost under a mattress._

_He unzips the bag and finds it’s full of old fashioned tapes and a beaten-up recorder. They’re dated from a long, long time ago, back before Gerry had even met Michael._

_Puzzled, Michael puts one in and begins to listen._

_“March, uh, 19th? Maybe. It’s like, the middle of the night right now, so who knows. Full moon up tonight, that’s nice._

_Hospital’s definitely got something up with it. Been scouting the perimeter. The fact that it smells like death notwithstanding, all the worms tell me it’s probably the Corruption. Earlier I--”_

_Hearing Gerry’s voice after so many weeks is too almost too much. It sucks the breath from his lungs, constricting his throat. Michael switches it off quickly. The tape recorder’s low whirring ceases._

_Michael stares at the thing. An instrument of knowledge, in some people’s hands. They can also be instruments of unknowing. Keeping secrets. Hiding bits of yourself away. Gerry must have picked the habit up from someone. He knows only one other person who still fools around with tape recordings when they’re dealing with the supernatural._

_Michael zips the bag back up. He places it on Gerry’s pillow, puts a hand on it just to make sure it’s still there, this last remnant of Gerry’s voice in a small safe place._

_“I’ll be back for you soon,” he says._

* * *

Trevor and Julia drop him off in front of a tall, nondescript building. It is surrounded by abandoned scaffolding and folded tarps. It’s not so tall as to make Michael dizzy looking at it, nor is it marked with cobweb or blood splatters; the patterns of the building are perfectly uniform and betray no darkness or flame. However, when Michael looks upon it, he knows that entering will be the end. The finality washes over him, that haze of death settling on him like a gossamer veil. The early morning is unsettlingly silent, no birds chirping in the distance or even the sound of cars.

Trevor shudders. “Urgh. This place puts a crack in my neck.”

“Your neck is already cracked, old man,” says Julia.

“Well I ain’t asking for extra ones,” he exclaims, before turning to Michael. “Are you good on your own? I’m not going in there if you’re capable of snatching the thing yourself.”

“We’ll probably try stealing it from you in that case,” Julia agrees. “Sorry in advance.”

Michael stares ahead. The End looms before him, a silent challenge.

“Right,” he says, and reaches to open the front door.

* * *

There’s nothing in the building. Nothing coats the walls like a layer of paint, the floor and ceiling indistinct. There’s a distinct absence of light, but no darkness -- flickering shadows being cast without objects to shape them. If Michael already wasn’t used to being in a state of nonexistence, it might’ve been unsettling. Instead, Michael simply feels nothing.

He walks for a long time. Perhaps an hour, perhaps three days. The floor beneath his shoes is a flat plane, yet slowly, he finds himself moving on a downward incline, into the depths of the place he isn’t. Michael might’ve called himself lost if he didn’t know exactly where he was.

Eventually he comes to a large precipice, the ground terminating sharply at what looks like a large cliff face that leads into a yawning, empty abyss. There is an itch in the back of Michael’s brain telling him to drop something in, see how long it takes to land. There would be no point, though; they’re already at the end after all.

“Michael,” a voice sounds from vaguely behind him.

He turns.

The corpse of Michael Shelley smiles back. Its face is empty and placid. The eyes are wrong, but not in the way Michael’s are wrong - they’re not distorted, they’re _dead_. They stare blankly ahead at him like a taxidermied animal. In the crook of one arm, it holds a book bound in dried human skin.

Michael doesn’t flinch. “What are you doing in that body?”

“It’s not as if you were using it,” The End grins. “And Michael Shelley _is _dead.”

“Michael Shelley joined the Spiral.”

“But then, the Spiral became ‘Michael’, didn’t it?” It tilts its head. “Where did Shelley go then, exactly? Not to you… but to me.” Smiling, a healthy flush in its cheeks, the End looks upsettingly human. “The _concept_ of Michael Shelley belongs to me now. The world has forgotten him, but I’ll remember.”

“What are you doing with Gerry?”

“It’s _my _book,” it scoffs. “His mother took it from me, the gall. Can you imagine being offered the chance to serve a God -- the closest thing to a God you’ll ever get -- and believing you’re _above _it? Completely audacious.”

“Take the book if you want it,” Michael says, pleading. “Let Gerry go.”

“And why should I?”

“Please.”

The End clicks its tongue. “Like I said. Completely audacious, the lot of you. Michael, maybe consider that it might be_ finally_ time for Gerard Keay to die.” It puts a hand on its hip. “Of course, that won’t deter you, I know. You have no love for the natural order of things, as it is.”

“I’ll trade you,” Michael says desperately.

“Your life?” It lets out a dismissive little noise. “Not a thing I particularly want, no offense. I already have Michael _Shelley. _Without him, without his experiences, what’s your life amount to? Not much.”

“Then _why_ do you want Gerry’s so bad?” Michael exclaims, frustrated.

“Because he has escaped me,” The End replies, a hungry glint in its eyes.

The nothing around him is beginning to tug at his edges, ravenously. Michael pushes out his next plea before it can be stolen from him and ripped apart. “I have heard -- from veritable sources-- that you enjoy games.”

The End licks its lips, eyes shining like jewels. “I _do _like games.”

“Then I’ll play a game with you.” Michael holds out a hand. He can feel the nothing press into it, trying to find a way in, to find whatever constitutes as a soul for him and devour it. “A wager. If I win, you’ll let Gerry go. If you win, you can…” He exhales. “...have both of us.”

The End sniffs. “Hardly a wager, with stakes like that. Think I’ll just _give_ you your man back? Your sense of adventure is missing, Michael.” It leans closer. “I’ll make you a deal. If you win, Gerard Keay is yours. But I want something _else_ from you, something of value.”

He hesitates. “What is it?”

The End circles him slowly, tapping a finger to its cheek as it makes a long sound of contemplation. “Let’s see. You have so little to bargain with… no real identity outside the Entity inside you. No loved ones, no one who loves _you..._ Not even a name of your own, really.”

It leans to whisper into his ear. “But that suits you, doesn’t it? You’re informed by your _lack _of identity. The Spiral must be very important to you, isn’t it? Your Unknown.” It grins. “I think I’ll take _that._“

A cold shock runs through Michael at the thought. His hands, without permission, tremble at his sides.

“That’s… that’s impossible.”

“Nonsense. There was a point in time when you _weren’t_ with the Spiral, wasn’t there? You’ll need a replacement, of course, but it won’t be long before you find someone with a suitably, ah, malleable mind. Perhaps they’ll even do your job better.” It chuckles to itself.

“I don’t… Without the Spiral, where would I even go?”

The End shrugs. “Somewhere. Not in the physical world, obviously, since you don’t exactly have a physical form to dance around in... How about a nice pocket of void?” It chuckles at the revolted face Michael makes. “Don’t look so upset! You’d _exist. _That’s more than most people get.”

“And Gerry,” Michael says frantically, “what about him?”

“Mmh. You’d need to wait for him to die first… for someone to destroy his page and release him.” It waggles the book demonstratively. “I can’t do it, and by the end of this process, neither will you. Something she did to the pages makes them rather _stubborn _to my will. It’d probably have to be a mortal, but I’m sure Gerard could find someone to do it. It might take some waiting, but you’d have your little happily ever after in my domain. And you would belong to me.”

Michael takes a shaky breath. “The Spiral won’t be happy about that.”

“The Spiral answers to _me_,” the End says sharply. “All Entities do, even if they don’t realize. Or _want_ to. I facilitate their hunger. I provide the lives they gobble up and I take the souls left behind. And I devour them.” The nothingness presses around Michael like a vice.

“Even Entities have ends.” It smiles emptily. “I don’t think you’d like to meet yours.”

“No.”

“Indeed.” The void withdraws. “That is the deal I offer. Win this game and I let Keay go, and you submit yourself to me. I keep you here, and you wait, he dies and comes back to you whole as he was.”

Michael doesn’t want to ask what happens should he lose.

“If that’s what it takes,” he says finally.

“So you agree to the terms?” asks the End.

“Yes.” It reaches a hand -- his _own _hand - out. Michael grips it firmly, feeling his own skin crawl with revulsion.

Michael Shelley smiles. “Then let us begin.”

* * *

It takes a long time for Gerry to open his eyes.

For a while he just lies there, listening to the sounds of bird songs in the distance, feeling the sway of grass against his skin as the wind rushes gently overhead. It’s deeply peaceful. It feels as though he’s on the verge of waking up from a dream, but holding on to the edges and refusing to let go.

Eventually he sits up. Oddly, the dream feeling doesn’t go away even as he becomes aware. He’s not in the city he died in, that’s for sure; he’s instead in a pleasant, abstract facsimile of a suburban town. It’s weird. Every time he looks at something his brain fills in the gaps of information -- he’s looking at a house, the wheat fields surrounding him, the blue sky overhead -- yet when he _look_s, there’s nothing there. It’s as if someone started making the idea of a town and gave up halfway through.

He’s too sleepy to feel all that anxious. After a few more moments of staring up at the sky, Gerry unsteadily gets to his feet and starts wandering.

Having limbs again is a trip. He’s wearing the last outfit he’d ever worn in life -- before having his soul extracted and bound to the page of a stupid Merriam-Webster dictionary -- a hospital gown. Hazily, he wonders if maybe he’d taken his stuff with him, somehow. He hopes he gets his phone. An eternity spent in an afterlife otherwise would be dead boring.

Gerry floats from place to place, passing by familiar landmarks he’s never seen before. The half-crushed wreckage of a large ship bobs peacefully at the shore of a gray, sandy shore. He walks by a farmhouse, a closed convenience store, a dingy café.

Gerry is walking towards something. He doesn’t know what, but he can feel it tug at his very core, gently guiding his feet to the strongest source of nostalgia of all. There’s a hotel, but no attendant at the front desk, so he simply glides up the steps to the room booked for him.

He wonders if he’s in Purgatory, or maybe a disguised Hell. He has the distant thought that life here would be dreadfully dull in the long run, spending it on his own.

It is dispelled as soon as he sees who is on the bed mattress.

Michael looks up from his book, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose, and smiles warmly. He looks painfully familiar. Gerry can see him with perfect clarity.

“Sweetheart,” he says.

Gerry is in his arms before he even remembers getting there. Michael mumbles into his hair, “Took you long enough.”

They embrace for a long, long time.

“Are we dead?” Gerry asks dreamily. His face is pressed into Michael’s chest, eyes shut lazily.

“It’s a bit complicated,” Michael muses, “but yes, in most senses.”

“Oh, wow, total bummer,” Gerry mumbles sleepily. He lets out a great yawn and leans heavier into Michael in the process. “I didn’t even know you _could _die, actually.”

“I didn’t either, but the End is capable of quite a lot of things.”

“Babe,” Gerry looks up at Michael with a soppy grin, “did you bargain with Death to save my life through unnatural and demonic means?”

“I played Monopoly with him. So yes.”

“God, that’s fuckin’ romantic. I love you, Michael. Never stop.”

Michael takes his hand. “I won’t. I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> this behemoth was inspired by [this piece of fanart](https://prentissed.tumblr.com/post/187940647648) by tumblr user @0fsilver, thank you for sending me straight to rarepair hell


End file.
